


Come What May

by hollycomb



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 04:30:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/807246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sulu and Chekov learn the consequences of drinking alien liquor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chekov has never woken up not knowing where he is. He's a navigator, obsessed with the location of every star in the universe, and he's always known exactly where he fits among them. So it doesn't make sense that he doesn't recognize this room, and then, when he does, that he doesn't remember how he came to be lying naked on the floor within it, someone big and heavy wrapped around him, the damp heat of what can only be a soft cock against the small of his back.

His heart pounding, Chekov looks down at himself and is briefly comforted when he recognizes Sulu's familiar hand loosely gripping his arm. He'd know those smooth, short fingernails anywhere; Sulu's hands are part of Chekov's everyday world, moving fluidly at the console beside Chekov, driving the ship. His relief is brief, however, because while he and Sulu have become good friends during the first six months of this voyage, they certainly don't make a habit of sleeping naked and entwined together. They haven't even kissed. Not that Chekov hasn't thought about it. He whimpers in confusion, his head pounding and his mouth dry, and tries to decide what he wants more, to cower against the comfort of Sulu's warm body or to get up and walk naked to the other side of the room, where he can see his shirt and underwear strewn on the floor. His pants are nowhere to be found.

When Sulu groans and stirs behind him, Chekov panics and rips himself from Sulu's grip, not wanting Sulu to think he knows what's going on here. The room they're in, a lounge for diplomats on Yrubi, is mercifully empty, save for an assortment of colorful pillows and the debris from the previous evening, half-empty bottles and flakes of the binsoi leaves the Yrubians were smoking last night scattered everywhere. Chekov hurries over to his underwear and pulls them on while Sulu moans with confusion.

"Pavel?" he says weakly, coughing Chekov's name out. Chekov puts his shirt on before turning to answer him, then ducks his eyes down when he sees Sulu spread out on his back, still too woozy to think to cover himself.

"Hikaru," Chekov says. "Are you alright?"

Sulu comes to his senses and curses in surprise at the state he's found himself in, grabbing a nearby pillow to hold over his crotch.

"What, what the --" he stutters, staring wide-eyed at Chekov, who is turning over pillows in a desperate search for his pants.

"I don't know," Chekov says, his face burning at the thought of Sulu even seeing his underwear, let alone whatever he saw last night. "I can't -- last night, do you remember?"

"All I remember is Kirk going off with that woman," Sulu says, hugging the pillow to his body, looking dazed. "And we came here with Mordecai and those guys, and they -- we were drinking that stuff."

"That brandy, yes," Chekov says, nodding. Someone seems to have stolen his pants, and the thought of returning to the Enterprise without them makes him want to weep with humiliation.

"I guess it was stronger than we realized," Sulu says, and when Chekov dares a glance at him he sees that Sulu's face is burning, too. "The last thing I remember is just -- everyone being here -- me and you were laughing."

Chekov's hands start to shake at the memory, which he'd thought would be a good one. Kirk had been off being Kirk, and Sulu and Chekov were left to entertain themselves until he reappeared in the morning. They met up with some of the diplomats they had been working with during the mission, and the diplomats brought them to this room, where Sulu and Chekov were served dinner by scantily-clad alien maidens, and where they drank sweet Yrubian brandy from clay mugs until they were both falling onto each other with laughter. Chekov remembers that part, Sulu's shoulder landing against his. He's still only seventeen, and most people on the ship treat him as if he's thirteen at best, so it meant a lot to be able to drink with Sulu, and laugh with him like they were equals. He swallows down a wave of nausea, unable to believe something that had begun so innocently seems to have ended otherwise.

"Here's your shirt," Chekov says, "And your pants, and --" He hands Sulu his boxer shorts, a flash of something that is not quite a memory streaking through him at the feeling of the fabric in his hands: the smell of Sulu's skin, and how good it had felt to lick over Sulu's hipbones as those boxers came down. Then the memory is gone just as quickly, and Chekov is glad for it, because he's sure his face is almost purple now.

He turns around while Sulu dresses, and jumps when Sulu taps him on the shoulder. He's holding up Chekov's pants, and Chekov exhales in relief at the sight of them.

"Thank you," he says as he stumbles into them. "Where did you --"

"They were over there, by where we -- slept."

Sulu stares at him, but Chekov won't hold his gaze. He feels sore and hollow and wet, too, something cold and sticky leaking into his underwear and then down his leg, and he's not naive enough not to know what it is.

"Pavel," Sulu says, so soft and apologetic that it sounds like he's going to cry. Chekov forces a shaky smile.

"Is alright," he says. "It happens."

"No, it doesn't," Sulu says, frowning. "Not to me. Not to you, either, I don't think." He flinches like he wants to reach for Chekov, then stops himself.

Chekov shrugs and heads for the open door. "Is part of exploring new planets. Making mistakes. Doesn't matter."

They walk back to the shuttle in silence, Chekov's stomach rocking with cruel waves of pain that nearly make him gag. Sulu lags behind him at a good distance, as if he doesn't trust himself to get close to Chekov without jumping on him like he apparently did last night. Or maybe it wasn't like that at all, maybe Chekov pulled Sulu onto him. He's certainly wanted to before, when they were drinking normal human vodka and not some evil alien brew. But even then Chekov would only have wanted to kiss Sulu, maybe rub against him a little, and he'd have wanted to fall asleep with his clothes on and remember everything in the morning, happy to wake up with Sulu still beside him. Now it's all ruined: Sulu must think so little of him. Chekov is thinking pretty little of himself as they prepare to beam back to the ship, Kirk's sunny mood like an added insult.

"You two look like shit!" Kirk says after he's placed the call to Scotty. "What'd you get up to last night?"

"Nothing," Sulu says tightly. "We're just tired." Kirk snorts.

"Yeah, right. Well, whatever. What happens on Yrubi stays on Yrubi, right?"

"Quit saying that about every planet we land on," Sulu mutters.

They arrive on the Enterprise and Chekov hurries away from Kirk and Sulu, headed for his room. He doesn't have to return to duty for twelve hours, and he's never been more grateful for the chance to be alone. When he's shut inside his room he rips his clothes off and heads for the attached bathroom, turning up the water as hot as he can stand it. He stands under the water and listens to the deafening pound of his heartbeat, waiting for the aches in his head and stomach to subside. His memories begin to creep back in incomplete flashes, blurry and random: the warm taste of the brandy on Sulu's lips, the dizzying scent of his neck, and words that Chekov maybe imagined, things like so beautiful and God, Pavel.

He washes himself in slow motion, careful with his body as if he doesn't know it very well. It has been through something without him, without his mind there to quantify and analyze and make decisions. It has betrayed him, really, and sabotaged his friendship with Sulu. Chekov has been afraid that this might happen since the beginning: even without the aid of strong alien liquor, he's caught himself reaching for Sulu once or twice, or maybe more like ten times, fifteen.

When he's through with his shower, he lies in bed for a long time, trying to sort out his feelings. He's still sore, and when he imagines Sulu opening him up and thrusting into him with his cock he shudders with revulsion and arousal. He wonders if he was a disappointing lover. He must have been; it was his first time. Anyway, Sulu probably doesn't remember. Chekov feels like he's been robbed, like he's lost something sacred and irreplaceable, and somehow the fact that he lost it to the person he wanted to give it to anyway only makes it worse.

He rolls onto his side and shuts his eyes, not holding out much hope for sleep. Instead, more hazy memories of Sulu's skin flood in, his hot breath, his needy touch under Chekov's shirt. What he can't recall is what it felt like to be filled up, to have someone -- Sulu -- inside him. All he knows now is the lingering sting.

When someone knocks softly on his door, he knows exactly who it is, and part of him wants to fling it open and scream at Sulu for not taking proper care of him and for harassing him in the aftermath, while another part of him wants to draw Sulu into the room and crumble into his arms, squeezing closer and closer until he knows a little of what it was like to be connected to him.

"Pavel?" Sulu calls, and Chekov can hear it in Sulu's voice, the weepy apology that will infuriate him. He doesn't respond, just lies there staring at the door, wishing he could see Sulu and glad, at the same time, that he's able to hide from him. Sulu stands outside for awhile, silent, then Chekov hears him walking away. He wants to be angry with Sulu for this, for giving up, but he can't be. Tomorrow Chekov will go to the bridge and smile at Sulu like he always has, pretending nothing has happened. There's no sense in dwelling on it. He doesn't want to hear Sulu's apologies and regret. That's not what he wants from Sulu at all.

*

The following morning, Chekov sits up straighter than usual at the console, a tight look of forced contentment on his face as he ignores Sulu's worried glances and pointed sighs. His soreness is almost gone, and he tells himself that any thought of that evening should go with it. It's meaningless in the great scheme of things. Maybe he and Sulu will look back on it someday and laugh.

"Are you okay?" Sulu asks quietly as he drops down beside Chekov in the officer's mess during lunch. Chekov looks up at Sulu with a grin, as if he can't imagine why Sulu would ask him such a question, inwardly cursing the fact that Sulu can probably see his spoon shaking as he holds it over his bowl of soup.

"Yes, I am fine, thank you," Chekov says. At least his voice is steady. "How are you?" he asks, as if Sulu is the one whose condition warrants concern. He's got bags under his eyes and he looks a little pale, his shoulders slumped with what might be shame.

"I'm not that good," Sulu says with a scoff. "Actually."

"Hikaru, don't be silly." Chekov turns back to his soup, adding more salt just to have something to do with his hands, and something to look at aside from Sulu's earnest face.

"Don't be silly? Chekov -- Pavel -- what I did to you --"

"Who's to say I didn't do something to you as well?" Chekov shrugs, still staring at his soup, the layer of salt approaching half an inch on its surface. "Is not problem. Ancient history already."

Sulu says nothing, staring glumly down at the table. Chekov ignores him and stirs his soup, afraid to take a bite because the salt will burn his tongue.

"Where is your lunch?" Chekov asks, reaching for his glass of juice instead.

"I'm not hungry," Sulu mutters. He looks up into Chekov's eyes then, catching him off guard, and Chekov feels like he's just taken a bullet to his chest. Sulu is saying a thousand things to him with his eyes, and Why won't you let me help you? is the one that is most clearly communicated. Chekov sniffs in disdain, as if Sulu has asked him this out loud.

"Maybe you should take a day of sick leave," Chekov says. Sulu says nothing for a moment, fidgeting nervously.

"Just tell me I didn't hurt you," he mumbles, barely loud enough for Chekov to hear, his gaze still cast downward. Chekov is frozen in place by the words, staring at Sulu, and when Sulu's eyes suddenly dart up to his, he has that bullet-puncture feeling again.

"No," Chekov says. "You didn't."

Sulu winces a little and then jumps up from the table like he's just heard an alarm on the bridge. He practically jogs out of the dining room, and Chekov watches him go, stunned and speechless.

*

Later that evening, Chekov is alone in his room, whereas normally he would be in Sulu's room playing chess or Karaoke Revolution XIV. He lies on his back in bed, thinking of all the nights when he and Sulu collapsed into laughter over that stupid singing game; Sulu always laughed like hearing Chekov sing American pop songs in his Russian accent was the greatest delight in the universe, and Chekov would jokingly complain that Sulu loved to see him humiliate himself, to which Sulu would respond that Chekov loved to see Sulu humiliate himself, too, or otherwise he wouldn't ask to play chess with him.

"Hikaru," Chekov says into the air above his bed, to no one, just because he misses spending his nights saying Sulu's name. He used to gasp it out like a protest when Sulu made him laugh too hard. It's a funny thing to miss so much.

His PADD beeps with a new communication, and he picks it up to give the latest message from the crew's official listserv a bored appraisal. No one else ever messages him.

To his surprise, the message is not from the Captain but from Sulu. Chekov opens it, his heart already pounding.

Pavel,

I've been doing some research on that Yrubian brandy and apparently it's pretty infamous. It's really not made for human consumption and it's a miracle that we haven't been sick for the past two days. Well, I have been, actually. I can't eat, can't sleep. Please tell me you're okay. I know I'm being annoying but I need to hear it every two minutes lately. I feel like I ruined you.

Also I took a test and I'm clean so you don't have to worry about that.

H.

Chekov rereads the message again and again, an unnamable reaction bubbling through him. Part of him hates Sulu for sending it -- now the whole shameful incident has been immortalized in official Federation communication, which will be archived for all eternity, never mind how private their PADD connections are supposed to be. He's brokenhearted at the thought of Sulu dragging around, unable to eat or sleep because of him, annoyed by the fact that Sulu needs to hear again that he's fine, and undecided about Sulu's fear that he's ruined him. Chekov doesn't like Sulu thinking that he has the ability to do so, but the fact that he's worried that he might have makes Chekov's chest ache, and he remembers the smell of Sulu's skin again, and the warmth that had spread through Chekov when he pressed his face to the heat of Sulu's neck. He sighs, not sure why he should be thinking of these things now, except that he's longing for both, for Sulu.

He opens up a blank document to compose a response and can't come up with anything. He's not even sure if he should address the message to Sulu or Hikaru. Frustrated, he pushes the PADD aside and flops down onto the bed, feeling seasick and miserable. So Sulu views him as a pathetic, ruined child. Chekov isn't sure why he feels so surprised. What did he expect, Sulu to go on pretending, the way Chekov has, that everything is okay? He's much too noble for that, and he certainly wasn't going to somehow react positively, realizing buried feelings for Chekov as a result of their reckless sex. Chekov winces, trying to imagine what he must have looked like while Sulu drove into him, hands tight on his sides. He probably moaned so loud. A flush of embarrassed arousal washes over him at the thought. And what sort of sounds would Sulu make? Maybe he stared down to watch Chekov's skin straining around the thickness of his cock, stretched and red and wet with whatever lubricant Sulu must have used, because Chekov isn't that sore.

He's hard, thinking about it, and his body clenches up with a little hiccup of muscle memory as he tries to imagine how it must have felt, that first hot push of Sulu's cock into his body. Chekov groans under his breath and rubs his hands over his face. He's no stranger to touching himself to thoughts of Sulu's hands, but he's never been bold enough to fantasize about something so graphic before. Meanwhile, poor Sulu is weeping in his room, mourning the loss of Chekov's innocence. Chekov smiles a little at the thought, and he picks up his PADD.

Come to my room, he writes, but he deletes the message before he can allow himself to be stupid enough to actually send it. Sulu would be doubly horrified to know that Chekov, angelic, ruined teenager, is lying in his bedroom and wanting Sulu to come and attend to his hardon in penance. He snorts, disgusted with himself and everything, and tosses his PADD onto his bedside table hard enough to make the plastic clatter angrily. He thinks of Sulu's message, his tender heart and pale-faced concern, and feels guilty. He's not even worthy of Sulu's regret, really.

*

The following morning, Chekov shows up late for his shift, dreading the thought of facing Sulu after a long night spent alternately dreaming about him and jerking off to thoughts of him. He's still exhausted when he arrives, and Kirk gives him a long look but doesn't say anything about his tardiness. Sulu is at the console, and he looks over at Chekov when Chekov takes his seat, but Chekov doesn't look back.

"Good morning, Sulu," Chekov says, keeping his eyes on his monitor.

"I guess," Sulu says. Chekov can feel Sulu's eyes on the side of his head like a phaser beam. "Are you alright?"

"Please stop asking me that, sir," Chekov says, as quietly and politely as possible.

Sulu sniffs and says nothing more; he's asked Chekov not to call him 'sir' since it makes Sulu feel like a dick. Maybe Sulu is a dick, bombarding Chekov will all of this faux-heroic concern. Chekov feels guilty for the thought as soon as he's had it, and glances over at Sulu's hands on the console, the sight making him shudder a bit, just at the small of his back.

"Thanks," Chekov says, keeping his voice low. "For your concern."

"Just forget it," Sulu says tightly, and Chekov is very glad that everyone else on the deck is distracted by some argument that Kirk and Spock are having about the proper use of replicators.

"Obviously you hate me," Sulu whispers. "And I don't blame you. But I get it now, okay, so I'll leave you alone."

"No," Chekov says, maybe a little too loudly. "I don't. Sulu."

But Sulu won't look up again, his cheeks pink as he frowns down at his monitor. Chekov scoffs, annoyed with his melodramatic attitude. As if things aren't going to be awkward enough between the two of them from now on.

They're in the middle of a five-day flight to the planet where their next mission will occur, and it's so boring that Kirk is going around the room and asking everyone what their favorite moon of Jupiter is, then forcing them to explain why. Chekov hunches down and sighs, dreading his turn to answer this question. He glances over at Sulu, who is staring off into space -- literally -- and looking so quietly broken that Chekov almost moans with sympathy. He opens up a dialogue box on his monitor and composes a message that pops up on Sulu's screen with a little ringing sound as soon as Chekov has sent it. He watches Sulu read it out of the corner of his eye:

I got your message last night

Sulu glances over at Chekov, who smiles at him shakily. Something changes in Sulu's eyes, and Chekov doesn't think he's ever seen it before, not on Sulu or anyone. He turns to his monitor and starts typing up a response to Chekov's message, and Chekov reads it when it pops up on his screen:

thanks for letting me know. i was worried.

Chekov grins and shakes his head at the monitor as he types up his response:

You worry too much Hikaru

Sulu touches his chin and takes some time to think before he starts typing again. Chekov is shaking with anticipation by the time he reads Sulu's next message:

i care about you.

It bursts through Chekov like a supernova, and he has to chew the tip of his tongue to keep from laughing out loud with something like relief. He dares a glance over at Sulu, who draws his eyes up slowly, again piecing Chekov like a bullet when they meet his.

"Chekov!" Kirk shouts, and Chekov jumps, hurriedly closing the message box on his screen as Sulu does the same on his own.

"Aye, Keptin?" Chekov says, turning, afraid Kirk is going to somehow know everything and announce the strange progress of Sulu and Chekov's relationship out loud. Kirk frowns very seriously.

"What is your favorite moon of Jupiter, Ensign?" Kirk asks.

Astronomy was Chekov's best subject in school, until he discovered physics, but he can't think of a single moon, and he's barely able to stop himself from saying Hikaru.

*

After their shift ends, Sulu and Chekov walk to dinner together, not speaking or even really looking at each other, just smiling faintly at nothing. At one point Chekov actually bursts into nervous laughter, and Sulu elbows him.

"I'm not even hungry," he says as they come to the door of the mess.

"Me either," Chekov says, and Sulu takes Chekov's arm, pulling him down the hall toward the crew's quarters as if he's a prisoner and Sulu is bringing him in. Chekov enjoys this treatment maybe more than he should, and by the time they reach Sulu's room his breath is coming fast. Sulu screws up his entry code and curses, and Chekov laughs again.

As soon as they get into the room Sulu lifts Chekov up and pins him back against the door, kissing him so hard that Chekov feels like he'll be torn in half by it, everything in him falling open, loose and happy as he wraps his arms around Sulu's shoulders. He moans when Sulu moves down to kiss his neck, his cock hardening in his pants at the strangely familiar feeling of Sulu's mouth on his skin.

"Wait," Sulu breathes, his face still pressed against Chekov's neck, his breath so hot against it. "We shouldn't do it all crazy -- again, this time."

"All crazy," Chekov says, laughing. Sulu releases him, Chekov's legs shaking when they find the ground. He pulls Sulu back onto him, and Sulu sighs against Chekov's forehead, his eyes fluttering shut.

"I barely even remember," Sulu says. "But sometimes, when you're sitting next to me at work, I'll get this flash -- like your ear, like. I remember --" He leans forward to demonstrate, licking Chekov's earlobe into his mouth and pulling it gently between his teeth. Chekov moans, his cock throbbing at the sensation.

"Yes," he says, panting for more already. "I have the same. Your skin. I'll think of it, the way you tasted."

"You tasted like a miracle," Sulu says, moaning under the words as he bends down to mouth Chekov's neck again. "Still do."

"Hikaru," Chekov breathes, grinning when he feels the press of Sulu's cock against his leg. He might have been nervous or awkward about this before, but now, since they've already done everything, he reaches down to stroke Sulu through his pants without hesitation. Sulu groans and kisses Chekov's jaw in little licks, still tasting him.

"Wait," Sulu says again, pulling himself back. "It's too -- I want to slow down." He says so even as he's licking his lips, staring at Chekov's mouth.

"Okay," Chekov says, because he does feel a little dizzy and overstimulated, slipping back into the hazy confusion of Sulu's body covering his. He leans up to kiss Sulu's neck very softly, moving down to the hollow of his throat, Sulu's pulse pounding under his lips.

"I hate that I don't remember what it was like, the first time we kissed, the first time --" Sulu trails off and looks down at Chekov, sighing.

"So this will be our first time," Chekov says, and Sulu takes Chekov's face in his hands. He stares at him like he's trying to relearn his face.

"I was afraid," Sulu says, his voice so soft and cautious that it makes Chekov's eyes burn. "That I did something. You didn't want."

"Hikaru." Chekov kisses Sulu's face, his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He was afraid, before, that he had lost some perfect thing that he might have had with Sulu, but this is still that perfect thing. "I'm so glad it was you. I wish I could remember, too. But we can make new memories, yeah?"

Sulu nods slowly and brings Chekov over to his bed, which Chekov has sat on plenty of times, always wanting so much to sink down on the pillows and shut his eyes, to breathe in the smell of those sheets, of Sulu. He lies down and Sulu climbs into the bed beside him, propped up on his elbow and leaning down to kiss Chekov sweetly, probably not intentionally teasing him, but Chekov is so hard for the taste of Sulu that he's whining before long, his hips twitching up involuntarily.

"What do you want?" Sulu whispers down against Chekov's cheek. "I just want to give you whatever you want."

"Touch me more," Chekov says, his voice breaking with desperation, and Sulu grins.

"Try not to sound so fucking young, okay?" he says. "I've got enough guilt issues over here."

"Don't be guilty. I want you, Hikaru, please." Chekov takes Sulu's hand and pushes it up under his shirt, and he remembers being surprised by the roughness of Sulu's palm, calloused from swords and flight sticks. He moans, arching up into the touch as Sulu reaches up higher and rubs at his nipples, then back down to his trembling stomach, moving so slowly. When Sulu's hand is spread over Chekov's stomach, Chekov feels so perfectly complete, as if Sulu is going to hold him here, in place, forever.

"You don't have to be so careful," Chekov says when Sulu's fingers slide cautiously along the line of Chekov's underwear, the elastic peeking up from under his pants.

"Yes, I do," Sulu says, and he leans down to cover Chekov's mouth with his, kissing him wet and hot and slow as his hand finally trails down between Chekov's legs. Chekov spreads himself open as widely as he can, rutting shamelessly into Sulu's grip. He's feverish with too much want: he wants to tear his shirt off, and Sulu's, too, so that he can feel Sulu's skin pressed against his, he wants his pants off so he can feel Sulu's rough palm on his cock, and wants to keep clinging to Sulu like this, kissing him, making it impossible for either of them to undress.

"This is still too fast," Sulu says, but that doesn't stop him from tearing open the front of Chekov's pants. Chekov throws his head back onto Sulu's pillow and groans in appreciation while Sulu massages his cock through his underwear. His balls begin to tighten up, and he grabs Sulu's wrist, not wanting to come already.

"Let me," Chekov says, though he's got no idea what he's doing. Sulu gives him a curious look of pure innocence, and Chekov scrambles up onto his knees to grab his face and kiss him for it. He kisses his way down Sulu's neck, pausing to suck and to bite, just once, between Sulu's neck and shoulder, making him squirm. Chekov pulls Sulu's shirt off, and Sulu is blushing beautifully when it's gone, but Chekov can't let himself get distracted and start kissing his face again. He pushes Sulu onto his back and begins kissing down his chest, licking into his shallow belly button and then over those hipbones he remembers.

"Pavel," Sulu says, in wonderment, leaning up from the mattress so he can watch as Chekov begins to kiss down over the bulge in his pants.

"You feel so big," Chekov says, rubbing Sulu with what he knows is infuriating softness. Sulu makes a choking sound, his eyes falling shut for a moment, then opening again, half-lidded now. "So hard," Chekov says, rubbing him just a bit more firmly, and Sulu groans, his head falling backward.

"Tell me, Hikaru, tell me what it felt like to be inside me," Chekov says, unzipping him slowly.

"Oh, fuck, I don't, I don't remember, God, I wish I did." Sulu is a wreck, and Chekov never thought he would see him like this, unraveled and surrendered, his chest heaving. Chekov pulls Sulu's boxers down slowly, his own face burning when he's staring wide-eyed at Sulu's naked cock. He barely got a chance to look at it on Yrubi when they woke in a panic, and it was soft then. Now it's full and flushed and standing up straight between his legs, wet at the tip, bobbing along with Sulu's harsh breathing.

"So big," Chekov says, running cautious fingertips up the length of Sulu's cock while Sulu pants and winces as if he's being tortured. "You left me sore, you know," Chekov says, tickling his fingers over Sulu's sweating balls before drawing them upward again.

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry." Sulu sounds like he might cry. Chekov smiles, then feels cruel and kisses the leaking head of Sulu's cock in apology.

"No, don't be sorry," Chekov says. He licks Sulu once, tentatively, and Sulu cries like he's been burned, his hips twitching weakly. "I think I liked it," Chekov says.

"God, Pavel," Sulu moans, his eyes pinched shut now, arms thrown out onto the mattress in total surrender.

"I want this to happen again, I think," Chekov says. He licks Sulu more purposefully, tasting his pre-come. "I want to walk around the ship with a sting in my ass, thinking about how hard you fucked me."

Sulu just groans, beyond words at this point, his eyes leaking as Chekov licks him again, then circles the head of his cock slowly with his tongue.

"You shouldn't feel guilty, Hikaru," Chekov says. His heart is pounding and his cock is rock hard, aching. He never suspected how much he would love this, saying filthy things to poor Hikaru, who looks as if he can barely handle hearing them, though Chekov suspects that he's enjoying it.

"I think maybe I begged you to fuck me harder, and faster, and deeper." He lingers over the last word, his lips moving on Sulu's cock as he says it, and Sulu bucks up with a desperate whine, Chekov's tongue sliding down his shaft as he does. Finally, Chekov admits to himself that part of the reason he keeps talking is that he's afraid to try to take Sulu into his mouth, and he settles for at least putting his lips around the head. Sulu groans tremendously when he does, one shaking hand pushing blindly into Chekov's hair, and he holds on while Chekov takes him in deeper, his groan giving way to a whimper.

"Pavel!" he says in a harsh whisper, and then he's coming, and Chekov is sort of choking on it, feeling like an idiot as it dribbles down his chin and then shoots hard and hot against his cheek. He looks up to watch Sulu, who is fisting the blanket on his bed with one hand and Chekov's hair with the other. He's arching up, spurting everywhere, and crying out with sharp little grunts that make Chekov want to fuck himself against the mattress and come before the tightness in his cock makes his whole body burst into pieces, but he makes himself wait, because he's already done something childish: failing to swallow Sulu's come. He licks it from his lips and wipes the rest off with the back of his hand, which he discreetly cleans on Sulu's blankets while Sulu likes there panting, still out of it.

He starts to crawl up to lie beside Sulu while he recovers but only makes it halfway there before Sulu is sitting up and slamming him back onto the mattress. Chekov laughs, bouncing against him, and Sulu growls into his mouth as he kisses him, as if he's telling Chekov to shut up, to take this seriously. He pulls back and kneels between Chekov's legs, ripping down his pants so that Chekov is completely exposed, his thighs shaking as Sulu stares down at his red prick. Sulu looks up to smirk at Chekov, who is burning with need, all of his skin as flushed and tight as his cock. He whines in protest when Sulu only strokes the insides of his thighs, though that does feel good, so good.

"You were begging me, huh?" Sulu asks, and Chekov grins up at him.

"Maybe."

"I wonder what it might have sounded like." Sulu draws one finger up the underside of Chekov's cock, slow and steady, and Chekov bites out curses in Russian, close to coming just from that, but he doesn't want to give it up until Sulu's mouth is impossibly hot around him.

"Please!" he grinds out, hating Sulu for being good at this, too, though he's glad for it, really, it's a relief.

"Please what?"

"Please suck me, please, I want your mouth, Hikaru -- ahh!"

"You want to come so bad, don't you Pavel?" Sulu's voice is getting throaty and raw, and it winds down Chekov's spine, making him tense up even more.

"Yes, please, Hikaru, so badly, I need it --"

"Does it hurt a little? Hmm?" He's still stroking Chekov's thighs like he could do this all night, his face calm and calculating now, as if he won't be satisfied until Chekov's eyes leak out in frustration.

"Does that throbbing cock hurt, Pavel? Look at you, you're so full, so fucking hard, I bet that aches, doesn't it?"

"Hikaru!" And then Chekov does cry a little, partly just to appease him.

"You know what would feel good?" Sulu asks, leaning down over him to smirk and whisper in his ear, his stomach just barely above the sobbing tip of Chekov's cock. Chekov only whimpers in response, half of him wanting to buck up against Sulu's body and come all over his stomach, but he wants his mouth, he wants it more than anything.

"You know what would make that aching cock feel so much better?" Sulu asks. He licks Chekov's ear, just softly. "My tongue would make it feel all better, make you feel so good. I bet I could swallow you up whole, and you could fuck my mouth, Pavel, but you wouldn't even get that far before you shot that big load right down my throat."

Chekov groans and cries and squeezes Sulu's shoulders with his shaking hands, not sure if he can manage one more please; he's wound so tight that he can't even remember the English word for it.

"Hikaru," he says instead, choking it out like a sob, and Sulu kisses Chekov's temple sweetly before ducking down and making good on his promise. He takes Chekov's cock into his mouth in one hot, quick swallow, and Chekov screams as he comes, more from the feeling of Sulu's lips straining around the base than anything else.

That's right, he hisses in Russian, out of his mind with the intensity of his orgasm. You swallow my come down, all of it. Sulu does, moaning around Chekov's cock between every gulp, and when Chekov has been sucked dry Sulu slides off of him slowly, Chekov's cock so overstimulated that he hisses again at the sensation, wordlessly this time. Sulu leans over him and kisses his face as the last aftershocks burn out of him, and Chekov wrenches his eyes open to stare at Sulu in complete bewilderment.

"Maybe it wasn't the liquor," Sulu says, grinning. "Maybe we're just like this."

Chekov calls him a fucker in Russian, grinning as he pulls Sulu down to thump heavily against Chekov's spent body. Sulu sighs and deflates on top of him, and the push of Sulu's strong breath against Chekov's stomach feels almost as good as Sulu's mouth did, or maybe it feels even better, in a different way. Chekov moans happily and winds his arms around Sulu's shoulders, kissing his ear with sharp little pecks.

"I want to die like this," Chekov says, accidentally in English. "With you on top of me."

"Trying to tell me that I'm crushing the air out of you?" Sulu asks, starting to move off, but Chekov whines and holds him in place, wrapping his legs around Sulu's back.

"Do you think we just started fucking while the diplomats were still sitting around smoking their pipes?" Chekov asks, and Sulu laughs, which feels so good, though he is sort of crushing the air out of Chekov, actually. He's heavy, but Chekov wants to always be flattened underneath him.

"It's possible," Sulu says. "Maybe that's how we cleared the room."

"You make me -- how did you say it? All crazy."

"You're all crazy anyway," Sulu says, leaning up so that he can look down at Chekov, and kiss the bridge of his nose. "That's why I --" He stops short of saying love you, but Chekov heard it, even if he's not sure Sulu means it yet. He grins.

"Can I sleep here?" he asks.

"Yeah, of course," Sulu says, rolling off of Chekov to kick his pants to the floor. His face is red, and Chekov wishes he wouldn't be embarrassed. Chekov doesn't expect Sulu to love him forever, but he wouldn't resent him if he did. Mostly he just wants to be naked and sleep with Sulu pressed against him in this private place, Sulu's bed, and he wants to wake up in the morning and remember everything.

When they're both undressed completely, Sulu has his room's computer adjust the temperature, turning it down lower to cool their sweat-slicked skin. Chekov rolls onto his side and holds his breath until Sulu slumps against him, pulling Chekov in snugly against his chest.

"You're so good, Hikaru," Chekov says, lifting Sulu's hand so that he can kiss every finger. "Such a good man, I think."

"You think?" Sulu says, nosing through Chekov's curls, and Chekov can feel his smile. "But you're not sure yet."

"I am relatively sure," Chekov says, and Sulu snorts with laughter, squeezing Chekov in even closer when he laughs, too, and tickling his hand down Chekov's chest.

"Jury's still out on you," Sulu says. He kisses his way down Chekov's neck to his squirming shoulder, and every inch of Chekov's skin is tingling from Sulu's attention.

"No one has made me want to be so wicked before," Chekov says, reaching back to smooth a hand over Sulu's ass, which is pleasantly damp with sweat. "No one before you."

"That's kind of a hit to my conscience," Sulu says, "But I'll take it."

Chekov has no idea what he means, but he shuts his eyes against his pillow and smiles hard enough to hurt his cheeks, not really caring. He's ready to sleep, and ready to wake up in Sulu's arms again.

*

Chekov starts spending every night in Sulu's bed, not really sure why they're sleeping in Sulu's rather than his, except that Chekov prefers Sulu's, and Sulu's room also seems nicer somehow, though it's virtually identical to Chekov's. The Enterprise arrives at the destination of their next mission, and Kirk goes planetside with Spock and two other officers. It's a ten day mission, and Sulu and Chekov are essentially on vacation while the ship is docked over the planet where Kirk and the others have disembarked. They're still expected to be on the bridge at their regular hours, but there isn't much to do, and they spend their time at work chatting quietly under their breath and trying not to look at each other in a way that broadcasts to everyone else on the bridge that they will be retiring to quarters to have sex as soon as they're free.

"You think anybody's noticed that you're sleeping here?" Sulu asks one night when he and Chekov have just arrived in his room. They've already fallen into a regular routine: Chekov collapses onto the bed and moans dramatically about how tired he feels while Sulu makes his way around the room, watering plants and checking his PADD for personal messages from home. He has a large family and they're always calling or writing. When he's through he'll fall into bed beside Chekov and kiss him for awhile, until Chekov starts complaining that he's hungry. They eat almost all of their meals from the replicator -- going to the mess takes too much time.

"Noticed? No. Who pays so much attention to us? Nobody. Can you replicate me a steak please, and strawberries, and some pretzels and milk and a couple of rolls, maybe?"

"So now I'm your sex slave and your chef?" Sulu says, grinning as he punches Chekov's order into the replicator. "What is with you and all the steak?"

"I don't know, I just want it. Thank you, Hikaru," Chekov says sweetly when Sulu brings him a tray full of food. Sulu grunts and sits down beside him.

"You're hungry," he says, and Chekov is so busy shoveling food in his mouth that he almost doesn't notice that Sulu seems to be mourning the loss of their post-work make-out. Chekov didn't even think about the fact that he'd skipped over it; he's been starving since an hour after lunch.

"I'll eat fast," Chekov says with his mouth full. Sulu snorts.

"Yeah, I know you will."

Chekov knows he looks ridiculous, stuffing handfuls of pretzels into his mouth between bites of steak, but he's felt so incredibly alive since he and Sulu started sleeping together, like a whole new person. His appetite is insatiable, his orgasms are almost painfully intense, and he even feels more attractive than he ever was before he spent his nights sleeping with Sulu curled around him. He wonders if this feeling, as if he could take on ten Romulans with his bare hands, is simply what all great happiness is like. He's certainly never known it before, except for maybe in the first few minutes after he won the Starfleet Academy marathon last year, but that quickly faded into something else: victory, accomplishment, exhaustion. He's known plenty of that. This is different.

"Kirk and the others will be back tomorrow," Sulu says. "Then we're headed to Dunedin. Maybe me and you will get to do another mission together." He grins at the thought, and Chekov smiles back, breathless from gulping his milk.

"Can you get me some more of this?" he asks, handing Sulu the glass. Sulu groans but does as Chekov asks. Chekov knows it's a little cruel and childish, ordering Sulu about, but he's never in his life known anyone to do anything he asks, and it's nice to finally be taken care of.

As Sulu is handing Chekov his refilled glass of milk, his PADD beeps with another message. Sulu picks up the device and grins down at his screen.

"My sister," he says, turning the screen so that Chekov can see. "This is her new dog, apparently."

Chekov hums in a sorry imitation of interest. He feels guilty about it, but he can't help resenting Sulu's constant communication with his family. Sulu has dropped little hints that he would like to hear more about Chekov's family, but Chekov still hasn't worked up the nerve to tell Sulu that his mother abandoned him when he was an infant and his father died after being knifed in a bar brawl when Chekov was fourteen. The story of Chekov's childhood doesn't quite measure up to Sulu's fond memories of holidays in space and learning how to fence with his father as his teacher.

"I don't think I would like to have this, a dog," Chekov says snottily. Lately he can't seem to help saying whatever comes to his mind, probably because he's still breaking in the feeling of Sulu's indulgence.

"No?" Sulu sits beside him with a sandwich and a beer from the replicator. "We had one when I was growing up, a cocker spaniel, Lucky. He was great."

"I would not like cleaning up after an animal."

"You wouldn't mind as much as you think you would, not if you loved them, you know, if they were a beloved pet."

"Well, if I never have one then I will never love one, yes? Less work for me."

"That's pretty cynical," Sulu says. "That's like saying, 'I'll never fall in love so that I'll never get hurt.' Kind of."

"Well, okay, this is why I am with you then, yes? Because you will never hurt me." Chekov half-regrets not saying This is why I love you, but Sulu must know by now anyway. It was implied. Sulu looks at him and smiles a little sadly.

"Right?" Chekov asks, elbowing him, trying to make it into a joke.

"Yeah," Sulu says, rubbing his hand down Chekov's back. "That's right."

After they eat, Chekov lies on his back and Sulu leans beside him, kissing his face and stroking him softly, down his arms and up under his shirt. Chekov ate so much that his pants are straining to contain him, so he kicks them off, and Sulu's fingers travel down over the inside of Chekov's thighs, which makes him laugh and go half-hard, though he's really too full and sleepy to do anything but lie still under Sulu's hands.

"You're so perfect," Sulu says, and Chekov wishes he could ask Sulu to stop saying this all the time, because it makes him feel very imperfect and unworthy, but he knows that's not Sulu's intention, and telling him to stop would only hurt him. Sulu is a little bit delicate, Chekov has learned. It makes Chekov nervous, because he doesn't trust himself with someone so kind and good, but he plans on getting away with it for as long as he can. He shuts his eyes for just a moment, sinking into the comfort of Sulu's soft kisses along his jaw, the warmth of his breath and the gentle pressure of his big hand spread across Chekov's stomach, his thumb stroking the baby fine hairs there just lightly. Sulu makes him feel tender and priceless, until they're fucking, when Sulu makes Chekov feel like a dirty, wanton little slut, which Chekov loves just as well, as long as he gets this treatment again afterward.

When he opens his eyes again, the room is dark and Sulu is no longer leaning over him. Chekov gasps a little in the back of his throat, because he will always hate this sensation, waking up and not knowing what's going on. He looks to his left and sees Sulu asleep beside him, turned away from him and sleeping on top of the blankets. Chekov scoots against him and licks at his ear until he groans.

"Hikaru," Chekov whispers. "What time is it? Why are you asleep?"

"'Cause you've been asleep for like two hours," Sulu says, grumbling and annoyed. "I didn't want to wake you."

"I fell asleep? Just like that? Look at this, the time is only nine o'clock! I'm sorry, Hikaru, I don't know what's wrong with me."

"It's okay," Sulu says. "Doesn't matter."

"Poor Hikaru, I abandoned you!" Chekov says, nuzzling at his neck, his hand winding around to pet Sulu's chest as he rolls him onto his back. Sulu groans irritably but lets himself be rolled.

"You can sleep if you're tired," Sulu says, looking up at Chekov with half-lidded eyes. Chekov rakes his fingers through Sulu's hair, which Sulu likes, and when he reaches down between Sulu's legs he's glad to find that this was enough to get him hard.

"I'm not tired," Chekov says.

"Could have fooled me."

Chekov gets up on his knees to demonstrate, and it's true, suddenly he feels wide awake, and he's hard, of course, he's always hard when he's close enough to smell Sulu's skin, or the thing that isn't quite his skin, the thing that is just him. Sulu is still half asleep and grumbling a little, but his hands find Chekov's hips as Chekov bends down over him, and Sulu pushes Chekov's underwear down, rubbing his hands over his ass.

They haven't done this without talking yet, and Chekov figures it's time to try it. He keeps his mouth pressed over Sulu's so that he can't speak, but there's not much danger of that, anyway, because Sulu is hazy and tired under Chekov's enthusiastic grinding. They undress in turns: one shirt, then the other, underwear, boxers. At night, in the dark like this, Chekov feels like Sulu's body is just another part of his, and it feels as good to kiss and touch him as it does to be kissed, to be touched.

Chekov breaks the no-talking rule after Sulu groans with the effort of sitting up on the mattress and surprises Chekov by pushing him over onto all fours, slicking his fingers with their bedside supply of lube in almost the same motion. Chekov spreads apart and opens for him easily, groaning into the sheets, but he doesn't speak until Sulu is sliding in, steady and slow, all the way to the deepest, hidden parts of Chekov, tripping secret nerves inside him that he hopes no one else will ever touch.

"God, I waited so long for you," Chekov cries, in Russian, thank god. He squeezes handfuls of the sheets into his fists and Sulu leans over him to kiss the back of his neck, sliding his arms down until his hands cover Chekov's on the mattress. He eases Chekov's fingers apart to lace his own between them, and Chekov huffs out his breath, feeling humiliated in a way that makes his cock hard. Look at you, Sulu says without speaking as he bites at Chekov's ear, his chest so hot against Chekov's back. Look at how you're mine.

Sulu thrusts into him with a sleepwalking rhythm, and Chekov chews his tongue, struggling not to cry Hikaru ten thousand times, because he likes the quiet of the room, and the closeness of the two of them in the dark; it's even more intimate to do it this way, without looking at each other, flooded with nothing but touch, no sight, and no sound except for the low mhmm that Sulu is moaning against Chekov's ear.

Before Sulu can wrench a please, harder out of Chekov, he speeds up a little, then more, still so deep inside Chekov, his thrusts shallow but hard. He shifts, then shifts again, and Chekov screams when Sulu finds what he's looking for, the place inside Chekov that won't let him stay quiet. Sulu growls with satisfaction and spreads his legs wider, fucking Chekov hard against that spot, making him scream again and again until he's crying through his orgasm, pushing himself back against Sulu in pathetic, wide-open rolls of his hips. He needs more, even with his come pooling onto the sheets, and Sulu knows it, so he leans up, dragging both hands down Chekov's back, just short of digging his nails in. His hands go steady on Chekov's hips, and then he's just pounding him, Chekov sobbing and keening as he takes it, slamming back to meet Sulu's thrusts, his fingers curled into the sheets again. When Sulu comes it tears another scream out of both of them, and Chekov pants with relief as Sulu falls onto his back to breathe harshly, filling him up with come. Chekov is shaking and sweating, exhausted again.

Sulu kisses Chekov's shoulder before pulling out, like he's checking to see if he's okay. Chekov laughs and lets Sulu draw him up into his arms, into his lap, then down onto the pillows. Sulu is still breathing hard, and Chekov pushes his body back against Sulu's so that Sulu's breath feels like the only force in the universe, the only thing he needs to worry about, the only thing that matters.

"So what should we do now?" Sulu asks. He strokes Chekov's hair, his neck, the softest part of his cheek. "Since it's only nine o'clock and you're not tired?"

"I am tired now, Hikaru," Chekov says, whining the words out, and Sulu laughs. Chekov has never enjoyed this before, acting childish and ridiculous, and he thinks he finally can because he can also act like a man with Sulu, someone who can take anything Sulu gives him, someone who once saved Sulu's life. Chekov feels the same sharp bite at his heart that he always does when he thinks of that day, of how close he came to losing Sulu. He pulls Sulu's arms more tightly around him, and Sulu takes the hint, squeezing him in closer.

"So go to sleep," Sulu says in a whisper, pressing one last kiss behind Chekov's ear. Chekov sinks down into the warm dark of his exhaustion as if he'd been waiting for Sulu's permission, his body throbbing with the satisfaction of being worn out and used up, completely spent.

He sleeps well and deeply, until his dreams about exploring strange planets are interrupted by a sharp pain that he assumes will stay behind in the dream when he blinks awake. But the pain is still with him, low and angry in his stomach, and Chekov moans and shifts, trying to make it go away. When the unmistakable need to be sick starts rising through him, he kicks the blankets away and climbs over Sulu, jogging into the bathroom. He barely makes it there in time to stick his head into the toilet and retch.

After emptying the considerable contents of his stomach, Chekov flushes the toilet and kneels on the floor before it, panting and pushing his sweaty hair from his forehead. He hears Sulu stirring in the bedroom and calling his name, and he turns to shut the bathroom door.

"I am fine," he calls when the door is shut, though he still feels like he could throw up for another hour. He hasn't got anything left in him, and after a couple of dry heaves he gets up and splashes water on his face, then rinses his mouth out, moaning miserably, his eyes still puffy with sleep and the light in the bathroom irritating him, even though it's only at twenty-five percent.

He's shaking when he goes back to the bed, too weak to even climb over Sulu, who scoots over into what has become Chekov's side to allow him in. Getting into bed and pushing his face against Sulu's chest makes him feel a little better, but his stomach is still rollicking under the waves of his sudden nausea.

"What's wrong?" Sulu asks, smoothing down Chekov's hair. "You're all clammy."

"I'm okay," Chekov says, the roughness of his voice betraying the fact that he's actually not. "I had to throw up."

Sulu makes a sympathetic noise and kisses Chekov's forehead.

"Your diet has been a little weird lately," he says. Chekov grunts in vague agreement and winds his arm around Sulu's waist. He falls back to sleep with relative ease, too tired to let the unsettled feeling in his stomach keep him awake, but then the alarm beside Sulu's bed is going off, much too soon. Sulu sits up with a groan while Chekov glowers against the pillow, hugging it to his face.

"C'mon, come take a shower," Sulu says, scratching his nails over Chekov's back. "You smell like barf."

"No, I don't," Chekov grumbles, though he's sure he does. "What time is it?" His stomach is still achy, feeling too hollow now.

"Time to get up. C'mon, Pavel. Unless you want to go to sick bay instead, get McCoy to have a look at you?"

"No, no," Chekov says, sitting up with a wince. He hates that Sulu has programmed his lights to come on when his alarm goes off, hates it. "I am fine, I can work."

Sulu pulls Chekov into the shower and washes him while Chekov stands under the water like a zombie. The hot water feels good beating against his skin, and Sulu's soapy hands feel even better, Chekov's cock rising to attention even before Sulu makes his way down past Chekov's stomach with the soap, but then suddenly his stomach is pitching again, and he has to lean against the wall of the shower to retch, spitting and cursing when he can't throw up, because his stomach is still empty.

"Are you okay?" Sulu asks, his hand on Chekov's back.

"My stomach," Chekov mutters miserably, and then suddenly he's so dizzy that Sulu has to catch him before he can tumble to the floor of the shower.

"Hey, hey," Sulu says, cradling him while he turns off the water. "C'mon, let's get you dressed and I'll take you to McCoy."

"No," Chekov says, fighting his way out of Sulu's grip. "I am okay, am fine, I only ate something bad yesterday, you should have your replicator checked."

Sulu raises an eyebrow and gives Chekov a look. Chekov bats the shower curtain away and climbs out, sighing shakily as he dries himself off. He hates missing work and doesn't want to give in to this illness. He hasn't been sick since he was nine years old; he believes it's a sign of weakness. Before, whenever he's thrown up, he's always felt fine immediately afterward. Once, he even went right back to drinking. That was his father's funeral, of course, his uncles cheering him on.

"Are you sure you want to go to the bridge?" Sulu asks as they're getting dressed, Chekov replicating himself a clean uniform. "You look pretty green," Sulu says as Chekov struggles to pull on his pants.

"No, I am fine," Chekov says, beginning to get annoyed. "Kirk and the others are returning today. I must set the course for Dunedin."

"Okay." Sulu sighs and walks over to comb Chekov's wet hair with his fingers. "Do you want to eat something before work?"

"No," Chekov says, shaking his head. "No, no. Eating would not be good."

"Pavel --"

"I will eat at lunchtime," Chekov says with a nod, but he's not sure he'll even have his appetite back then. Just watching Sulu eat a bowl of cereal and drink a glass of juice makes his stomach queasy all over again.

They walk down to the bridge slowly, Sulu pretending not to notice that Chekov is still feeling miserable and barely able to walk without getting sick again. Chekov is determined to shake this off, but every light and noise as they make their way through the halls feels like it's hammering against him, threatening to knock him over. When they finally arrive at the bridge he walks ahead of Sulu to the console, concentrating on every step. Kirk arrives just twenty minutes later, fresh from the shuttle, with Spock at his side. Kirk is cheerful, as he always is after returning to his ship, and Spock is stoic, heading straight for Uhura.

"Let's blow this popsicle stand," Kirk says as soon as his ass is in his chair. "Sulu, what do you think, a warp 4 to get to the Dunedin space station?"

"That would get us there in roughly forty-eight hours," Sulu says.

"Yes," Chekov echoes uselessly, feeling dizzy as he stares down at his monitor.

"Works for me!" Kirk slaps the arms of his chair. "Punch it."

Chekov shakes his head clear of its cobwebs and concentrates on his work, setting the coordinates for the space station while Sulu readies the ship for warp speed. Docking at space stations is tricky; there is drift to account for, and always plenty of spacecraft clogging up the area. Chekov plots a warp course that will put them roughly two hours from Dunedin at normal speed so that Sulu can guide them into the dock more carefully once they've arrived.

"Ready," Chekov says when he's done, glancing to his left to watch Sulu's hands working the console, pulling back the lever that will warp them.

"Warping in three, two, one," Sulu says, and then comes the first yank at the artificial gravity on the bridge, the only hint that the ship is now moving incredibly fast. It takes the body just a second or two to adjust, normally. Chekov is finding it not so easy today, his stomach hurling forward as if it wants to race the ship, and he barely has time to worry about throwing up all over the console before he's tipping backward in his chair, headed for the floor.

He wakes up to a lot of shouting and commotion. Sulu, Kirk and Uhura are all crowded around him, saying his name. Sulu is the only one saying Pavel instead of Chekov, which is probably a dead giveaway.

"What's going on? What's wrong with him?" Kirk sounds panicked.

"Honey? Can you hear me?" Uhura is talking to him like he's a child.

"I told him to go see McCoy, he was throwing up last night." Sulu is determined to give up their secret, or maybe he just isn't thinking clearly.

"Perhaps he contracted something when he accompanied you on the mission to Yrubi, Captain," Spock says, appearing suddenly. Chekov laughs miserably at the blurry sight of Spock hovering above the rest of the concerned faces.

"Is he drunk?" Kirk asks, horrified, and Chekov laughs harder.

"No," Sulu says sharply. "Everybody get out of the way, I'm going to take him to McCoy."

"I can walk," Chekov protests when Sulu tries to pick him up. He stands with Sulu's help, his knees still wobbling, and Sulu and Kirk catch his arms when his stomach pitches again. Chekov groans, his midsection pulsing with pain.

"Like hell you can walk," Sulu says, and he lifts Chekov into his arms, which is extremely humiliating. Chekov scowls but doesn't have the energy to fight as Sulu carries him to the sick bay.

"Let me down," he says when the doors of the lift have closed around them. "Hikaru! What do you think you're doing?"

"Me! How about you, you're too sick to be up here, you knew that this morning."

Chekov scoffs. "Put me down," he says, weakly now, resting his head against Sulu's shoulder.

"I will when we get to the sick bay," Sulu says, and Chekov hates him, and loves him, for carrying him all the way there.

*


	2. Chapter 2

Chekov's stomach has begun to feel mostly normal once he's stretched out on the examining table in the sick bay, McCoy programming a body scanner for his evaluation. Chekov hates that everyone on the bridge saw him like this, weak and unable to stand, carried about by Sulu like an invalid. He's had to work so hard for the respect of his superiors, and now they'll treat him as if he's ten years old instead of thirteen.

"Here we go," McCoy says, setting a portable body scanner in motion. "Let's see what the hell's wrong with you, huh?"

"It is just a stomach ache," Chekov says sourly as the little device floats from McCoy's hand up to Chekov's head, scanning him there and beeping with a green light glowing on its reader.

"Not a brain tumor, then," McCoy says with a smirk. Chekov smiles a little.

The scanner moves to check each of Chekov's ears, then his neck and chest, lighting up with a green glow over each. It floats down to hover over his stomach, and halts in its path, beeping as if it has detected an error. McCoy frowns and reaches for it.

"Alright, you little fucker," McCoy mutters at the machine. "What's the problem?" He frowns down at the monitor and raises a disbelieving eyebrow.

"What does it say?" Chekov asks, hoping that McCoy has simply detected an upset stomach and that he will send Chekov back to the bridge with some quick fix medicine.

"It says I've entered your gender wrong," McCoy says, eying Chekov suspiciously.

"What?" Chekov frowns, his cheeks red. "What did you put, that I am a woman?" He wonders if McCoy has been drinking on the job.

"No, I told it you're a man," McCoy says, fussing with the buttons on the scanner. "But it seems to think you have a uterus."

"A what? I do not have this!"

"You sure?" McCoy asks, still giving Chekov that suspicious look, which is beginning to make him extremely angry. "Some people have dormant hermaphroditic --"

"No!" Chekov is glowering now, fuck the fact that McCoy is his superior. He won't sit here and be called a woman, or a half-woman, without defending himself. "Your machine is broken."

"Maybe so," McCoy says, tossing the thing over his shoulder like it's a dirty rag. It clatters onto the counter behind him and he pulls over a much larger scanner that is mounted to the wall. "Let's try this one, we'll get a full picture."

Chekov sits back, his heart racing as McCoy brings the machine to life. He lifts it up and maneuvers the monitor so that it is positioned over Chekov's stomach, then removes Chekov's hands, which he had folded over his stomach in something like self-defense. McCoy goes to stand at the end of the bed to look into the scanner's large monitor, and he frowns at what he sees, leaning in closer.

"What?" Chekov asks, his heart pumping faster. "What is it?"

"It's – it looks like –" McCoy shakes his head at the monitor and then looks up at Chekov. He pulls the scanner down a bit so that it covers Chekov's crotch as well, and sighs. "I'll be damned," he says.

"What?" Chekov asks, wanting to fling himself off the table, to hide.

"You've definitely got a dick there, yep, and testes, the whole package."

"Of course I do!"

"And you've also got something that looks a whole lot like a motherfucking uterus. Which is, uh. Not unoccupied."

"You make no sense!" Chekov shoves the machine away and gets off the table, his legs shaking. "This is ridiculous, a joke!"

"Hey!" McCoy tries to catch Chekov, but he's too fast. He jogs across the sick bay with McCoy in pursuit, barely able to see straight. Chekov almost crashes into a young nurse, who gasps and jumps out of his way.

"Get back here!" McCoy shouts. "Ensign! That's an order!"

Chekov stops at the sick bay door, panting. McCoy is a bastard for this; it must be a joke. He turns back to glare at him and wait to hear his apology.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" McCoy asks. "Act like an adult, for God's sake!"

Chekov's eyes drop to the floor, these words shaming him back to the examining table. He climbs onto it with some difficulty, his arms shaking just as badly as his legs now.

"Relax," McCoy says, holding up his hands. "We'll figure this out."

"Is mistake," Chekov says, trying to keep the shake in his limbs from climbing into his voice. "I do not have this. I am --" He stops himself from saying I am a man, because it's too pathetic. All his life he's been teased for being frail and pretty, and he's made himself not so frail through a lot of hard work, but most people still see him that way, even those who know he's a marathon winner. The thing with Sulu has made him even more sensitive about it. He likes getting fucked, not just because he loves Sulu and wants to be close to him but because he loves taking his cock, loves bending over and submitting and letting himself fall completely open. His father would have said that makes Chekov a woman.

Chekov is sweating heavily as McCoy continues his examination, and his stomach has begun to ache again, though differently now. It's stress and panic eating at him, making his throat feel as if it's going to close up. McCoy isn't saying anything, and the whole sick bay is so quiet. Chekov wonders if Sulu is still waiting outside or if he went back to the bridge.

"Well." McCoy sighs and stands back, pushing the scanner away. "This is fucked up."

"Doctor?" Chekov is practically hyperventilating, wishing it was anyone here with him but McCoy, probably the least comforting person on the ship. Except for maybe Spock.

"Listen, I – don't really know what's going on here," McCoy says. "I need to do some research."

"May I go, then?" Chekov asks. He feels like if he just gets the hell away from McCoy everything will be okay. McCoy narrows his eyes.

"I don't know," he says. "This is – it might be something you contracted on a mission. I should really monitor you closely."

"Please," Chekov says, letting his voice get soft and shaky, because it's available to him when he needs it, the sad eyes and the pleading face. McCoy sighs.

"Just don't go anywhere alone," he says. "Make sure someone is with you so that if there's a – development – they can call in an emergency."

"Yes, yes." Chekov nods; this won't be a problem. At the moment he wants nothing more than to bury his face in Sulu's chest and ignore whatever is happening to him. "Yes, sir."

"Get out of here, then," McCoy says, and Chekov gets the distinct impression that the very sight of him is making McCoy nervous. He hurries away, and when he pushes out into the hallway and sees Sulu leaning against the wall, he has to bite back a whimper of relief.

"What's the matter? Are you okay?" Sulu is on him immediately, and Chekov nods, too exhausted and embarrassed to even attempt to tell him about the nonsense McCoy was spouting.

"I want to go to your room," Chekov says, and Sulu puts an arm around him to lead him there.

"Everyone will know," Chekov says as they walk down the hall that way, drawing looks.

"I don't care," Sulu says. "Let them think I'm a pervert. You're legal." He punches in the access code for his room and Chekov hurries inside, rapturous over the sound of the door shutting tightly behind them. As soon as he gets himself into Sulu's bed again, things will make sense. The bad feeling that is coiled tightly at the pit of him will disappear.

"Do you need to go back to work?" Chekov asks as Sulu climbs into the bed beside him, moving carefully, as if Chekov is a homemade bomb.

"No." Sulu puts the back of his hand against Chekov's forehead and frowns. "I told them I was looking after you, so they put Tucker on my shift – you're so hot, what did McCoy say?"

"He says it is only stomach flu, nothing serious." Chekov lies down on Sulu's pillow and lets his breath out, shutting his eyes.

"Stomach flu? What sort of stomach flu? Human or alien?"

"Human, Hikaru, nothing serious. Please, just lie here."

"Let me get you something for your head," Sulu says, and he gets up, returning from the bathroom with a cold washcloth, which does feel good against Chekov's feverish skin. He makes satisfied little moaning sounds as Sulu dabs at his forehead with the cloth, feeling stupid and weak but too frightened to care.

Sulu puts the cloth aside and begins arranging things: he puts a waste basket by the bed in case Chekov gets sick, lowers the temperature in the room slightly, removes Chekov's boots and puts the view screen on some kind of alien soap opera where everybody communicates through interpretive dance.

"Here," Sulu says, handing Chekov the controls for the view screen. "You should always watch something ridiculous when you're sick."

"Hikaru, come here," Chekov says, reaching for him. "I am not contagious."

Sulu grins and removes his own boots before getting back into bed beside Chekov, who clings to him, ashamed of himself for needing this so much. Sulu sighs, and Chekov loves that, the sound of Sulu's exasperation with the world, or with Chekov.

"You're shaking like a leaf," Sulu says, testing Chekov's forehead again. "Did McCoy give you anything to take?"

"No, he says this just needs to, how do you say it, run the course. McCoy is crazy," he adds sourly.

"Crazy?"

"Yes, he is a bad doctor, I think."

"What? Why?"

"I don't know, I think that maybe he drinks while he is working. Maybe I will speak to the Keptin about this."

"That's a pretty serious accusation," Sulu says. "You'd better have some proof."

"Oh, Hikaru, never mind," Chekov says, not wanting to discuss his proof. Already the things that McCoy said to him seem like something he only imagined. He settles against Sulu and stares at the view screen, none of what is transpiring upon it reaching him. All he can think about is the odd feeling in his stomach, which is probably only upset nerves, but there is something else there, too. Real trouble.

He falls asleep and has nightmares: McCoy is keeping him in a cage as a specimen who has been infected by some horrible, incurable space disease. Kirk informs him that he filled out his Starfleet application incorrectly and now must but immediately jettisoned onto the nearest deserted planet. Finally, Sulu leaves him, his reasons unclear, and he's disgusted when Chekov's begs him to stay. Chekov wakes up groaning and sweaty, still clinging to Sulu, who is calling out to someone who is knocking on the door, telling them that yes, Ensign Chekov is here.

“I need to speak to him,” McCoy calls through the door, and Chekov curls up tighter against Sulu's side.

“Tell him to go away,” Chekov whispers, and Sulu frowns.

“What the hell is going on with you?” Sulu asks. “He said he needs to talk to you about your diagnosis, he's trying to --”

“No!” Chekov sits up in a panic and looks around the room for a means of escape, still stuck in his awful dreams, still achy and tired and overheated.

“Well, is he coming out or isn't he?” McCoy asks.

“Just give him a second, he was sleeping,” Sulu says, and Chekov is overwhelmed by a sudden rush of love and pity for Sulu and guilt over his own behavior. His lip actually shakes, and he bites it.

“Hey,” Sulu says, turning to him. He smoothes his hands down Chekov's shoulders. “Just go see him and let him make you better, alright? You've been so – even if it's just flu, let him give you something to take for it.”

Chekov doesn't tell Sulu that he's afraid – almost positive, somehow – that McCoy can't help him. Something is happening to him, and maybe it has been happening since Yrubi, those hours he doesn't remember. He's not sure what that nonsense about a uterus was, but now McCoy has done research and figured out what is really going on, and it's not going to be easily cured, Chekov can feel it.

He goes to the door in a daze, Sulu following closely behind him. McCoy still looks the way he did in the sick bay, as if being around Chekov is making him uneasy.

“Chekov, if I could, uh, see you in the sick bay, please,” McCoy says. “To discuss your – condition.”

“Yes, Doctor,” Chekov says glumly, and Sulu squeezes Chekov's shoulder as he walks from the room.

“Want me to come with you?” Sulu asks.

“No,” Chekov says, though he does. He's already been childish enough for one day, and whatever is happening to him, he'll be facing it alone. He follows McCoy back to the sick bay in silence, and McCoy brings Chekov into his office, which Chekov has never seen before. There's a tank full of tropical fish along the far wall, a messy desk in the center of the room and a few uncomfortable chairs placed around it. The lights in the room are at maybe ten percent, most of the illumination coming from a tall lamp in the back right corner. Chekov walks to the fish tank and stares into it while McCoy shuts the door behind him.

“Alright,” McCoy says. “You might want to sit down for this.”

“For what, Doctor?”

“Uh. Oh, hell, Chekov, just sit.”

Chekov does as he’s asked, and McCoy sits down at his desk, across from Chekov. His eyes are dark and not as angry as usual, more apologetic. Chekov's stomach whines and he realizes that he's extremely hungry.

“You were on Yrubi recently, correct?” McCoy says. Chekov nods. “Uh-huh. Well. I've done a little research and I've studied those scans we took of your – of you. Tell me, Ensign, did you drink anything of alien origin while you were on Yrubi?”

“I did,” Chekov admits, his face heating. “Some brandy served by the diplomats. They said it was closest to Earth brandy, anyway, that was how they described it to us.” His embarrassment dissolves into panic when he considers the fact that if the brandy has something to do with his illness, Sulu might get sick, too.

“Fuck,” McCoy whispers, the word punching at Chekov's heart. “And you, um.” McCoy sits back and winces, scratching the back of his head. “You didn't also happen to come into contact with, uh. Human semen on this particular evening? Did you?”

He already looks pretty certain that Chekov has, and Chekov can't meet his eyes as he nods, staring instead at a paperweight on his desk. McCoy sighs.

“According to my cursory research, this has happened before to men who combine Yrubian brandy and, um, sex with each other. Hell, some of 'em even do it on purpose. If they want to, you know. Have a kid together.”

“What?” Chekov's eyes snap up to McCoy's, and his appetite disappears.

“Yrubian brandy is not meant to be consumed by humans,” McCoy says with a sigh. “The Yrubians use drugs and alcohol in a kind of spiritual sense – they think it makes them feel like they're at one with the universe, part of everything, connected to all other Yrubians and blessed with a temporary understanding of all things everywhere – you know, the usual religious garbage. Some manufacturers of drugs on their planet actually try to enhance this feeling by infusing their drinks or smokes with this particular herbal supplement that makes them, well, sort of become both sexes while they're partaking. It's supposed to make sex incredible, apparently. For them.”

McCoy clears his throat. Chekov just stares, his mouth hanging open.

“In humans, the effect isn't exactly complete – it depends on the person,” McCoy says. “Some guys will just feel more in touch with their emotions. Others, apparently, have been known to grow partial or complete female organs. Such as your uterus here,” McCoy says, suddenly producing a print of the scan he took of Chekov's body. He points to a blurry organ at the center of him and Chekov jumps backward, grabbing the arms of his chair.

“What! Don't call it that! It is not mine!”

“Yeah, unfortunately it is. It probably would have disappeared after you stopped drinking, but apparently it got, uh, impregnated somehow. And now it's hanging around, confused as hell, and supporting this baby which you can just barely see, right here –”

“No!” Chekov gets up and begins pacing, refusing to really look at the scan. “I don't see anything, you are mistaken, you must check again –”

“I will check again, but I'm pretty sure I'm right –”

“If you are right, okay, you take this thing out of me,” Chekov says, his voice beginning to shake. He wants Sulu here, but then again, he's glad that Sulu will never know about this. The thought of Sulu stops Chekov's pacing, and he turns to gape at McCoy.

“The person who – had the – sex with me while I was drinking this brandy –” Chekov is stuttering, his heart closing up painfully over this new information. “He is – he – impregnated this – thing, inside me – it is – his?”

“Yeah,” McCoy says slowly. “Uh, I was thinking – Sulu, maybe?”

“How do you know this?” Chekov asks, falling back into the chair. He keeps touching his stomach involuntarily, then taking his hands away, humiliated.

“The screams coming from Sulu's bedroom every night sound an awful lot like yours, I've heard,” McCoy says, and Chekov's face burns, as if sex with Sulu is even going to register as something embarrassing anymore. “Also, when you weren't in your quarters, I checked his room, and there you were, asleep. So, you know. I figured the rumors were true.”

“Does not matter,” Chekov says, shaking his head. “Does not matter, because this thing, you can remove it from me, yes?”

“I don't know,” McCoy says with a sigh, sitting back. “In the research I've looked at, these male pregnancies don't usually go too well. About ninety percent of the carriers end up dying around the five-month mark, when their bodies don't know what to do with this intruding organ.”

“So I'm going to die?” Chekov blurts, and for some reason this doesn't feel as surprising as it should.

“Not if I have anything to say about it.” McCoy frowns and sits forward. “We've got some of the most brilliant scientific minds in the galaxy aboard this ship – you included – and we'll figure something out. In the past, trying to tamper with the pregnancy has been just as unsuccessful as trying to carry it to term, but if anybody can pull this off, we can. I'm going to talk to the Captain about returning to Yrubi –”

“The Keptin! No, you cannot tell him! You cannot tell anybody!”

“Chekov!” McCoy barks. “I understand your desire to keep this private, but our best chance is to tell everyone we can – we need to get in touch with every doctor who has ever treated a patient with this condition, every survivor who has gone through it, the Yrubian medical community –”

McCoy stops talking when he sees Chekov's eyes fill up with tears. “Look,” he says, holding up his hands. “I know this is a lot to process. But like I said, we've got about five months before this condition is potentially going to get dangerous if these past cases are anything like yours, which I suspect they are. Until then, you're going to have to deal with an upset stomach and an increased appetite, maybe some hormonal imbalances, definitely a lot of – emotions.” He says the word with distaste and tosses Chekov a handkerchief, which Chekov is too embarrassed to use.

“In the meantime, why don't you go rest? Try to eat something, talk to Sulu –”

“I cannot tell him this,” Chekov says bitterly, placing the handkerchief on McCoy's desk. He will hate me, he thinks. Chekov shuts his eyes, remembering that look of disgust that Sulu had for him in his nightmare. It would be ten times worse if he learned of this grotesque pregnancy and was forced to take responsibility for it.

“Chekov,” McCoy says. “It's not fair not to tell him. And it's no good for you, either, you'll want someone to talk to and God knows I'm not –”

“I will go now, Doctor,” Chekov says, standing. He makes his face a mask of indifference, a skill he learned as a child, just as useful as the trembling lip and begging eyes that work people over in another way. McCoy shakes his head slowly.

“I'm so sorry this happened to you, kid,” he says. “But trust me, I'll do everything I can –”

“Yes, Doctor, I trust you,” Chekov says, and it's true, it's the reason he was so terrified as soon as he heard McCoy say the word uterus. He does know what he's doing.

Chekov goes back to his room and shuts himself in. He takes off his clothes and fills the tub in the en suite bathroom with hot water, then sinks into it with a wince. He won't let himself think seriously about what McCoy told him. That he could die. That he could have a baby. He can't even decide which would be worse.

Sulu comes looking for him an hour later, and Chekov is still in the tub, shivering as the water goes cold. He hears Sulu calling his name through the door and doesn't answer. He can never tell Sulu about how he's already ruined things, made them dark and doomed and disastrous like everything in his life necessarily becomes. He'd rather go on pretending nothing is wrong and die in a puddle of blood at Sulu's feet on the bridge. McCoy could lie and tell Sulu that Chekov had contracted a rare disease and that his death was sudden and unexpected. Sulu would never know that a baby – his baby – had died with Chekov.

Chekov waits to start sobbing at the thought, but mostly he feels disgusted with himself. He reaches down and puts a hand over his stomach. The only thing that is keeping him from completely losing his mind or getting uncontrollably sick at the thought of something living inside him is the knowledge that Sulu put it there. For a brief moment he actually likes the idea that part of Sulu is contained within him, a little spot of light, Sulu's goodness and strength, and that even while Chekov is here, hiding from Sulu like a coward, Sulu is still with him in a quiet, secret place.

The feeling passes when Chekov tries to picture this baby growing so big that it will sag like a bag of potatoes from his stomach, and then, if by some miracle Chekov and the baby were to survive, he tries to imagine himself holding it, coddling it, taking care of it. He knows that he doesn't have it in him, he doesn't even want to have it in him, and the comfort of having something of Sulu's inside him fades to a horrible, crushing guilt. He's going to spoil everything; some essential missing part of him will ruin what Sulu has given him. He folds both of his hands over his stomach like an apology and tries to summon the strength to get out of the bathtub.

*

Chekov spends the evening reading and ignoring Sulu's messages to his PADD:

Where are you? McCoy said you left an hour ago.

Pavel? What's up? I'm worried.

hello? are you okay? are you mad?

Chekov half-expects Sulu to come pounding on his door and then insist that someone open it with the override code, thinking he's dead on the floor inside, but that doesn't happen. He sits on his bed and eats spice cake and fish tacos and handfuls of almonds, not enjoying his wild cravings so much now that he knows what they're for. The baby. Sulu's baby. He still can't really consider this as a real thing that is happening to him, and this is why he's avoiding Sulu, because seeing him would make it all real.

He drinks maybe a gallon of milk and falls asleep like someone has pulled curtains down over his eyes, still in the boxer shorts and t-shirt he put on after he finally got out of the tub. It's strange, sleeping alone and with clothes on for the first time in weeks, and he enjoys it, actually, the freedom to squirm about and even the old loneliness, the complete privacy of his quiet room. When he wakes up around five in the morning to throw up he's again glad that he's alone, that he doesn't have an audience, but when he stumbles back to the bed feeling weak and empty he hates that Sulu isn't there to receive him.

He dresses and reports for his shift as usual, feeling dizzy. At least they won't be warping today, so hopefully he won't black out. When he arrives at the bridge he's afraid he'll find someone else in his chair, that McCoy will have told Kirk everything and Kirk will have reassigned Chekov to manage a supply closet so as to better suit his condition, but Chekov's chair is empty when he arrives. Sulu's is not, and he whirls around to stare at Chekov expectantly as Chekov walks across the bridge.

“What the hell?” Sulu says as soon as Chekov sits down.

“I needed to be alone,” Chekov says, his heart already pounding. He imagines that Sulu can see straight into him now, that he forever owns some part of Chekov's body, or all of it. Sulu has now officially and thoroughly conquered him. The first hard wave of resentment peaks in Chekov's chest, and he knows it won't be the last.

“Well, you could have told me. Fuck, I went to McCoy and he said you might be 'upset about something' and that you needed 'time to think,' what the fuck was he talking about?”

“I do not want to discuss it here, Hikaru,” Chekov says, giving him a sharp look. Sulu scoffs and turns back to his console, throwing up his hands.

“You know what?” Sulu says, staring down at his monitor. He grunts and begins composing a message on his console that soon pops up on Chekov's screen.

i think i liked you better when we weren't fucking.

It splits through Chekov like a live wire, making everything in him jump to stunned attention. He closes the message quickly.

“Stop that,” he hisses to Sulu, wishing they had more to do at work today, other things to think about. Chekov's head is hurting, and now he has to worry, fuck, that when he doesn't feel well it might hurt Sulu as well, the piece of Sulu that is incubating inside Chekov. Without Chekov's permission. Furious, he opens a new dialog box on his screen and sends a message to Sulu:

Then maybe we should stop doing this thing that you liked me better before we were doing

Sulu's response makes Chekov want to hoist the whole console over his head and smash it to the ground:

that sentence doesn't make any sense.

Sorry that my English is not so good I guess I am a disappointment in every way

you never acted like this before.

Like what

like you are out of your freaking mind

Stop this you are being very unprofessional Hikaru

Sulu actually has the nerve to snort out a laugh, and when Chekov turns to glower at him he's still grinning. Chekov tries and fails not to smile back, and when he does he's not sure where this leaves them.

“Idiot,” he whispers.

“Psycho,” Sulu whispers back.

They sit together at lunch, Sulu eating the dining room's hot meal of the day – featuring some actual non-replicated ingredients – while Chekov eats an entire replicated pizza with mushrooms and blueberries, a flavor combination that occurred to him only as he was punching in his order.

“I guess this means your stomach is feeling better,” Sulu says.

“Quit making that face at my pizza,” Chekov says, changing the subject. “It's good, you should try.” Sulu grins and shakes his head.

“How did I know you for almost a year and never realize how goddamn weird you are?” Sulu asks, as if it's a serious question.

“You are not very observant, I think,” Chekov says.

“Yeah, I guess. You just seem, I don't know. You're keeping me on my toes. I just don't like it when you disappear, okay, especially when you've been having fainting spells all day.”

“That was not all day, that was one time, and it was not a fainting, it was a blacking out.”

Sulu groans. “Yeah, okay. The point is, are you going to keep having these fucking mood swings or what? 'Cause I'd like to know what I'm in for. And if you're still mad at me for what happened on Yrubi you should really –”

“I am not mad about that!” Chekov says, so sharply that Sulu jumps a little. “I was never mad. That was my fault as well. You are not to blame.” Even as he says so his feelings are beginning to change. Sulu is older and he knows more about the dangers of consuming alien food and drink. He should have protected Chekov. He took advantage of him, really. Now Chekov is the one who will pay the price.

“Then why are you looking at me like you kind of want to tear my head off?” Sulu asks.

“I am not,” Chekov says. He stands to go back to the bridge, and the feeling of dread hits him even before the nausea does. He's not even going to make it to a bathroom before he throws up.

“Pavel?” Sulu says, and Chekov is again struck by a flailing sense of sympathy for Sulu; it's something about how he says Chekov's name. Then Chekov is just vomiting all over the floor and not thinking about anything but his embarrassment over the disgusted exclamations from the others in the dining hall.

“Give him a break, he's sick!” Sulu calls as he leads Chekov away. “You're okay, you just pushed it too hard with that pizza,” he says, rubbing Chekov's back as he leads him down the hall toward his quarters.

“I don't need my room, I need only a bathroom,” Chekov says, moaning miserably as his stomach kicks at him again.

“Well, there's a nice, private one in your room, okay, and we've still got twenty minutes left on our break. C'mon.”

Chekov groans and leans against Sulu. “Hikaru,” he says weakly, staring up at him. He wants to ask why Sulu treats him so well, why he's willing to take care of him after the abuse Chekov has leveled at him. But Chekov knows the answer already. Sulu loves him.

“You're okay,” Sulu says softly, kissing Chekov's forehead. They come not to Chekov's room but Sulu's, and Chekov is somehow stupidly glad for this. As soon as he's inside he runs for Sulu's bathroom and leans over his toilet to be sick again.

“I'm gonna call McCoy,” Sulu says, standing in the doorway behind him.

“No,” Chekov moans. “Please, Hikaru, he cannot help me.”

“Bullshit, he can't. And what was all that about you needing 'time to think' and being upset? Oh, fuck, Pavel, I couldn't even sleep last night, if there's something really wrong with you –”

“There is,” Chekov croaks out, still leaning over the toilet. He's delirious enough with his nausea that telling Sulu the truth actually seems like, if not a good idea, the only chance he really has of surviving this without going out of his mind. Maybe Sulu will take care of him, if not out of continued love then at least out of grudging responsibility. The thought makes Chekov throw up again.

“Pavel,” Sulu says, suddenly kneeling behind him on the floor, his hand soft and shaking on Chekov's back. He sounds like he wants Chekov to take it back already, to tell him that everything is fine. They both know now that it is not. Perhaps some part of them has known it since they woke up together on Yrubi, as much as they've tried to pretend that that incident could end happily for them.

“What's wrong?” Sulu asks when Chekov flushes the toilet and leans away from it, groaning and rubbing at his face. Sulu pushes Chekov's hand away and replaces it with his own, stroking cool fingers down Chekov's cheeks. “What's the matter?” he asks, his eyes wide with fear.

“Hikaru.” Chekov chokes the name out in three syllables and falls to Sulu's shoulder, sobbing. He's never liked crying and doesn't do it often, but for some reason it feels so good now, as if the heaving of his sobs can push something big and dark out of him. Sulu holds him tightly, whispering almost wordless reassurances as he strokes Chekov's back.

“You're gonna be okay,” he says, as if it's in his power to promise this. He helps Chekov up from the floor and walks with him to the bed. Chekov has been dreaming of Sulu's bed since he heard the news about his – pregnancy, it's still hard for him to even think of that word, and he crumbles into it gratefully, pulling Sulu down with him. For a long time they just lie pressed together, shoulder to ankle, and Sulu waits out Chekov's crying.

“Whatever it is, McCoy can fix it, and if he can't, well, Kirk loves you, he'll scrap our next five assignments and bring you to some doctor, somewhere, who can.”

“Nothing can fix this,” Chekov says, sniffling and wiping at his eyes.

“What is it, Pavel?” Sulu puts his forehead against Chekov's. “Please, God, tell me, I'm going to fucking – if anything happens to you, I don't even know, I'll –”

“On Yrubi, the drink we had,” Chekov says, relatively sure that he won't be able to explain this to Sulu coherently. “It is – it makes you – grow organs, sometimes.”

Sulu raises an eyebrow, then his face falls back to worry and regret. “I never should have let you drink that stuff,” he says, and Chekov frowns, though he's had the same thought.

“I did not need your permission,” he says.

“So – what?” Sulu says, not taking up the argument. “You have an extra heart now or something? What?”

“I have a thing of a woman.” Chekov wants to hide his face under the blankets while he says this.

“A thing of a woman?” Sulu glances down at Chekov's legs. “Not last time I checked.”

“Hikaru, there is a baby inside me, from you, from this time when we drank.” Chekov blurts it all in a long string, half-hoping that Sulu won't hear some of the key words, though that will just mean that he'll have to repeat himself.

“What – what the hell are you talking about?” Sulu asks, some of the softness leaving his face.

“A baby! This, here!” Chekov sits up and points to his stomach. “You do not believe me? Go and talk to McCoy.”

To Chekov's complete shock, Sulu gets out of the bed without another word and leaves the room, presumably to do just that.

*

Chekov goes back to the bridge when his break ends, feeling as if he's been torn in half. Sulu's reaction was not exactly what he'd expected, and he'd thought he'd prepared himself for the worst. When he arrives at the console a man who is not Sulu gives him a friendly smile and tells him that he'll be working the rest of Sulu's shift.

“What happened to him?” Chekov asks flatly, standing beside his chair, not ready to sit until Sulu is beside him again.

“Beats me!” the man says cheerfully. “Maybe you gave him whatever you have. Are you sure you're well enough to work? I heard you barfed all over everybody during lunch.”

Chekov sits down with a grimace, hating everything and everyone around him so much that he almost wishes the ship would just explode into nothing around him. He's a joke among his fellow crew members. Sulu is so disgusted by him that he will probably request a transfer to another ship – he's probably doing it now. Chekov will die in some gory pseudo-childbirth disaster and the whole thing will be hushed up so he doesn't embarrass Starfleet further.

His shift crawls by, with nothing to do except monitor the routine flight to Dunedin. Chekov uses the time to imagine ten thousand different ways that Sulu might tell him goodbye. Most of them are savage and sudden, but the few more realistic scenarios, such as Sulu's face turning red as he apologetically tells Chekov that he's not interested in having children and didn't think he was signing up to fuck a woman, are the most devastating.

When his shift is finally over he heads to his room, and he's not surprised to find Sulu standing outside his door with a very somber expression, but it still hurts, hard and sharp in Chekov's chest, to know what is coming.

“You left the shift,” Chekov says, standing and staring at Sulu, still waiting to wake up from all of this, even the good parts erased. Maybe he's still in his skinny bunk on Yrubi, maybe this is all a brandy-induced dream.

“I went to see McCoy because I was afraid you were losing your mind.” Sulu speaks as if he's practiced this. “Turns out. You're not.”

Chekov grunts in annoyance and opens the door to his room. Sulu follows him inside without being invited. The room is a mess, as usual, and Chekov feels embarrassed by it for the first time. Now Sulu will look at Chekov's piles of books and papers and unmade bed and think of what a horrible caretaker Chekov will be for Sulu's child. If he's even thinking of things so concretely yet. Chekov is afraid to look at him fully, afraid to know what he's thinking.

“Pavel,” Sulu says as Chekov clumsily attempts to make the bed; he's never tried before. “What are you doing?”

“Cleaning up.”

“Why? Look at me, alright?” Sulu is all the way across the room. Chekov knows that whatever happens, Sulu will never want to touch him again. He's a compromised thing, unclassifiable and spoiled. Maybe he always knew this about himself and Sulu is only discovering it now.

“I guess McCoy told you everything,” Chekov says. He thought he would hate McCoy for this, but he's actually so grateful that he doesn't have to do any of the explaining himself.

“I told him what you said and – yeah. He confirmed it. I can't – I can't. I don't know where to start.”

“Yeah.”

“Pavel! Are you mad at me? I mean, I guess I couldn't blame you – fuck, definitely not. Do you – do you want me to go?”

Chekov opens his mouth to say, Yes, get out of here, but all that comes out is, “Hikaru,” and it must be clear enough that he's begging Sulu to stay, because he crosses the room and grabs Chekov's shoulders, spinning him around. Chekov expects himself to burst into tears as soon as his eyes are on Sulu's, but instead he just stares up at him stupidly, still waiting to hear his reaction to the news.

“He said you could die,” Sulu says, his jaw tight.

“It doesn't matter,” Chekov says, and Sulu curses, shaking Chekov's shoulders.

“How can you say that? What's the matter with you? Quit looking at me like you're – won't you – hit me or something? I've killed you, Pavel, I –”

“I only meant that it doesn't matter what he said,” Chekov says, though he's not really sure what he meant. “I might be okay.”

Sulu stares at Chekov for a moment, blinking, then leans in to kiss him, which surprises Chekov so much that he actually backs away. Sulu looks at Chekov like he's just put a knife through his chest.

“Hikaru, do I really have this – inside me?” Chekov asks, like Sulu has the final say. Sulu sighs and looks down at Chekov's stomach as if the answer is written there.

“McCoy showed me, on the scan,” Sulu says. He chews his lip, which Chekov has never seen him do. In fact it's something Chekov does, and he's flooded with a strange sort of pride when he thinks that maybe Sulu picked it up from him.

“It's yours,” Chekov blurts, like Sulu will reclaim it, take the burden away.

“Duh,” Sulu says with a snort, and Chekov laughs, then they're both laughing, but it doesn't last long.

“Have you told your parents?” Sulu asks. Chekov shakes his head.

“Are you going to?” Sulu asks.

“No,” Chekov says. “They're dead.” His mother actually might not be, but she's as good as. Sulu's eyes widen, as if the fact that Chekov is an orphan is somehow the strangest thing he's heard all day.

“God, Pavel, I'm sorry, I didn't know.” Sulu hugs him, cautiously, as if he's afraid Chekov will pull away again. Chekov lets out his breath and sinks against Sulu's chest, squeezing him tightly. Sulu rocks him back and forth, his arms wrapped around Chekov's shoulders, and Chekov thinks of their baby, pressed between them, safe now that Sulu is here. Their baby. It's odd that Chekov can already think of it that way, and that it gives him temporary comfort to do so. He wants so much for Sulu to say something about it.

“Will you tell your parents?” Chekov asks, and the question seems wildly inappropriate as soon as he's asked it. He hides his face in Sulu's shirt.

“I don't know,” Sulu says. “I guess I'll have to.” He doesn't sound happy about it.

“Of course, if I end up dying, there would be no point in telling anyone,” Chekov says bitterly, still clinging.

“You won't die,” Sulu says, his uncertainty ringing through every word. “Your parents – how did you lose them?” He's maybe thinking of genetic diseases, things his child could inherit – or no, he doesn't seem to want to think about the child at all. Chekov pulls away from him and goes to the bed, frowning down at his comical attempt to straighten the sheets.

“My mother left us when I was a baby,” Chekov says, his fists curling at his sides. “She might still be alive, actually, I will never know. I do not want to know. My father, he was a good person, but he drank too much. Someone killed him in a bar during my first year at Starfleet. I heard that the argument was over a game of durak – uh, is a card game.”

He feels pathetic, ending his story this way. He thinks of his father bragging to everyone that his son was a genius and would captain a starship someday. He used to get in fights for saying such things, and lost his front teeth to one, but he never stopped saying so.

Sulu's hands slide onto Chekov's shoulders, and Chekov almost doesn't want them there, especially while he's thinking of his father, who would be so disappointed in him. Chekov is glad he didn't live to see his son be turned into a woman like this. He'll certainly lose his career with Starfleet because of it. He tries to picture himself on the bridge, pregnant, and scoffs at the tears that prick into his eyes.

“Hey.”

Chekov is getting so tired of Sulu's Hey, but he lets Sulu turn him around and blinks the wetness from his eyes. Sulu looks like he might cry himself, but instead he pulls Chekov's shirt off.

“What are you doing?” Chekov asks. He can't imagine ever wanting sex again, now that he associates it with what's happened to him, the end of his life.

“Just shut up and let me take care of you,” Sulu says, and Chekov is embarrassed by how much he needed to hear that. He goes limp under Sulu's hands and lets him remove all of his clothes and lead him into the bathroom. Sulu fills the tub with hot water and Chekov climbs into it to watch Sulu undress before joining him, sitting behind him with his legs stretched out around Chekov's body. They can barely fit together in the tub, but it feels nice to lie back against Sulu's chest, and Chekov doesn't mind being squeezed so tightly against him.

“You're going to be okay,” Sulu says, running his wet hands over Chekov's shoulders and chest until he starts to feel sleepy and soft in Sulu's arms. He almost expects Sulu to sing him a lullaby, and laughs at the thought.

“What?” Sulu says, kissing Chekov's ear.

“Nothing.” Chekov reaches back to palm Sulu's cheek. “Hikaru. You must be so sorry you ever touched me.”

“How can you say that?” Sulu's hand skims down Chekov's chest and comes to rest low on his stomach, covering him like a shield, or an apology, or a promise.

“You don't want this,” Chekov says. “At least if I died from it you could go on with your life.”

“No, I couldn't.”

“You only think that now.”

“Will you quit being so goddamn contrary?” Sulu's hand is still spread over Chekov's stomach, maybe a little possessively. “And, like, constantly underestimating me is starting to get old, too.”

“I don't do that.” Chekov wants to scream, Hikaru, tell me what you think about this baby, but he's still afraid to know, so he doesn't.

“Whatever, man. C'mon, you need to eat something.”

They get out of the tub, dress, and eat from the replicator. Chekov eats eggs, bacon, and two tomatoes, and none of it tastes right. Sulu has his usual sandwich and beer, and frowns at Chekov's food.

“I wonder if it's healthy, eating from a replicator while you're, uh.”

“Pregnant?” Chekov snaps. Sulu winces a little.

“Yeah, that.”

“I don't know, why don't you ask the doctor?” Chekov pushes his plate away and gets into bed, turning toward the wall. He's always so exhausted after dinner, or anyway he has been since Yrubi. Before, he and Sulu would stay up until three hours before their next shift, playing that stupid karaoke game or just talking about things, drinking coffee. Chekov listens as Sulu finishes eating and goes into the bathroom to clean his face and brush his teeth. Soon he's pressing his naked chest against Chekov's back, and it's enough to make Chekov want to forgive him for everything. Not that he's really done anything. But of course he has! Chekov whimpers when Sulu leans in to kiss his neck, hot and slow.

“I am tired of feeling this way,” Chekov says.

“What way?” Sulu asks, slinging his arm over Chekov's side so he can rub his fingers down his chest.

“I don't know,” Chekov whines. “This way.”

“McCoy said this will mess with your hormones and – stuff. Your emotions. I was wondering why you'd been so weird lately.”

“I am sorry I have been weird,” Chekov says, not sure how he feels about the fact that his cock is getting hard as Sulu's hands roam over his body.

“I'm sorry I didn't believe you before, it's just – how could I?” Sulu says. “I know this is space and they warned us to prepare for unorthodox lives or whatever, and I thought I had, but man. I think the worst part is that you and I have only had, what, two and a half weeks together, and now this? I mean, I – I've never even thought seriously about having kids, I figured I would have them someday and, okay, yeah, if I got anybody pregnant I would kind of hope it would be you, in a way –”

“You would?” Chekov squawks, sorry that he just interrupted that monologue.

“Well, I didn't even think about the possibility, really, but you're the one – you're the one, you know, so why not? I just feel bad that – well, what the hell are we going to do with a kid?”

“I don't know,” Chekov says, spinning around and leaning up on his elbow. He looks down at Sulu, who seems so innocent and frightened there in bed, on his back like a helpless turtle, so sweet.

“Should I be worried about the way you're smiling?” Sulu asks.

“How am I smiling?” Chekov asks, his cheeks aching with it.

“Kind of like a maniac.”

“Hikaru, I love you,” Chekov blurts, in English without even meaning to, it just falls out of him and leaves him like a headache suddenly popping away, a great pressure rolling off his shoulders. Sulu is quickly up on his elbows, kissing Chekov hard.

“I knew it,” he says, his breath so hot on Chekov's lips, and he can't remember the last time they kissed, but they should never go so long without it again. Chekov doesn't have time to wonder if he's allowed to ever have sex again, because soon he's bucking up into the soft heat of Sulu's mouth, then crawling onto his knees to greedily suck Sulu's cock, wishing Sulu would pull on his hair even harder, and finally he's on his knees with his sweaty hands flattened on the wall, Sulu fucking him in slow drags, making him cry and beg for more.

“Please, please,” he whines, snapping his hips back to try and prod Sulu to ride him until he can't breathe. He just wants to forget everything, the way he does whenever he and Sulu are slamming so wildly against each other that they don't even seem to have bodies anymore; they become some scientific principle instead, friction and white hot light.

“Be patient,” Sulu says, his own voice hard and breathless. He reaches down to stroke Chekov's cock, rubbing his index finger in little circles over the head, pushing into the wet tip as if he wants to open that up, too. Chekov moans and surges forward mindlessly, then back again, onto Sulu's cock.

“C'mere,” Sulu says, withdrawing himself slowly, making Chekov sob. “I wanna watch you.”

Sulu lies back on Chekov's pillow and spreads himself out, guiding Chekov back down onto his cock, Chekov facing Sulu and breathing out with relief, because now he's in control.

“Wait,” Sulu says when Chekov begins to fuck himself down onto Sulu desperately. Sulu reaches out and holds Chekov's hips. “Come for me first. I wanna see.”

Chekov nods deliriously and reaches for his cock, which is so full and hard in his hand that he almost loses it just from the first press of his fingers. He bounces a little as he strokes himself, shallowly, and Sulu's eyes flicker shut, then open again, his hips twitching up to meet Chekov's bounces.

“You're so fucking beautiful,” Sulu says in a groan, and Chekov has a sudden flash of half-memory: that night on Yrubi, Chekov ripping his clothes off and standing naked under Sulu's gaze. Sulu had looked so hungry and dangerous, but then he'd said that, and in a way it had scared Chekov more than any other words would have.

“Come for me,” Sulu says, his hands tightening on Chekov's hips. “C'mon, Pavel.” He thrusts up once, hard, and Chekov screams as he comes, his hand closing tight around his cock as he pumps himself onto Sulu's chest. He feels more blown apart by it than he has in a long time, feels Sulu watching him and licking his lips, his cock throbbing in Chekov's ass.

“That's a good boy,” Sulu says in a growl, sitting up. He lifts Chekov easily and throws him back onto the bed. “Now you get what you want,” he says, grinning down at him as he lifts Chekov's legs onto his shoulders. Chekov nods wildly, chanting da, yes, da, as if Sulu needs encouragement at this point. Sulu fucks him hard, lifting him off the bed by the backs of his knees, and Chekov screams as loud as he wants, because apparently everyone knows about them anyway. He doesn't care what people on this ship think of him when Sulu is pounding into him like this, wouldn't even mind if they all stood around watching, almost wants them to when Sulu slams against his prostate and makes Chekov come again, in a strange kind of aftershock surge that he's never felt before; his come is thinner and sweeter than it usually is, splashing against his own mouth. Sulu comes instantly, seeing this, and he sounds so nakedly astonished that Chekov feels proud of himself.

They're in a heap afterward, soaked in sweat, aching everywhere, and Chekov puts his hand over his stomach instinctively, feeling a little guilty.

“Don't worry,” Sulu says, putting his hand over Chekov's. “I asked McCoy if you could still. You know.”

“You are a bastard, Hikaru,” Chekov says, laughing. Sulu grins and licks Chekov's cheeks. He told him once that he wants to lick his freckles right off of him and swallow them up.

“It was my chief concern,” Sulu says, and Chekov laughs harder, worming his way into Sulu's arms despite the unbearable heat of his body.

“Seriously, though,” Sulu says. He smoothes Chekov's hair down. “I, um. I'm here. For you. So don't run away again, okay?”

“Did I run away?” Chekov mumbles, already half asleep. He thinks of his mother. As a child he always pictured her not just leaving in the night but literally running away, all the way into another country, never stopping.

“Sort of,” Sulu says. “Also, you totally had, like, back to back orgasms. Which. Man.”

“You credit yourself,” Chekov says, grinning.

“Um, yeah.”

Chekov sleeps, and has his nightmares, but now they are about waking up and finding that his baby is gone. In the dreams, Sulu always blames him, and he's furious as Chekov searches his messy room in a panic for the mislaid infant. In one dream Chekov actually finds the baby, who is chubby and unharmed, reaching for him as if he knows him. Sulu forgives Chekov immediately and closes both of them into his arms, and Chekov is sorry when he wakes from this dream, Sulu snoring in his ear. He wants to know, even if they do achieve such a happy ending, what in the hell would happen next.

*


	3. Chapter 3

The next month is full of nausea and dizziness for Chekov, but he manages not to miss another shift, though he has to get up from his chair and run to the bathroom at the back of the bridge several times during his early shifts. When the illness finally begins to fade, Chekov finds that he enjoys eating more than he ever has, no longer having to dread everything he eats coming up again in several hours and still tasting vaguely food-like.   
  
Sulu spends all of his free time researching male pregnancy and Yrubian brandy, and McCoy does the same, reporting to them on his findings almost nightly. Chekov often lets his eyes glaze over as they talk at him excitedly, sharing their theories about how they might help him survive. In a strange way, Chekov doesn't want to hear any of it. He has a secret faith in his body that has been building by the day, and he only nods blankly as Sulu and McCoy introduce him to new supplements and talk about placentas and proper nourishment. Chekov spends most of his time not researching but sleeping, curled up beside Sulu while he taps on this PADD madly, searching the annals of time for every word that has ever been written about Chekov's condition.   
  
McCoy gets Chekov's permission to tell Kirk around the two-month mark, because though Chekov's stomach is still only just slightly pudgy under his shirt, they need to make plans to be around Yrubi in about three months time, should McCoy deem it necessary for Chekov's treatment. Chekov is off of work on the day when McCoy tells Kirk, and he spends the afternoon nervously waiting for Sulu to appear and tell him how the Captain reacted to the news. When Sulu is two hours late, Chekov rouses himself from bed and fishes his PADD from the overflowing pile of junk on his dressing table. He has a new message from Sulu:  
  
 _if you're looking for me i'm in the brig._  
  
Chekov doesn't bother to send a reply, just runs as fast as he can down to the brig, pretty sure, by the time he gets there, why Sulu has been imprisoned there. Sure enough, Kirk is standing outside Sulu's cell and glaring in at him. Sulu is glaring just as hatefully back at him.   
  
“What?” is all Chekov manages to say once he skids to a stop in front of the cell, out of breath. Kirk does a sort of flail and grabs Chekov's arms.  
  
“Oh my God!” he shouts in Chekov's face. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yes?” Chekov looks questioningly at Sulu, who rolls his eyes.   
  
“I can't believe this happened!” Kirk's grip on Chekov's arms tightens. “And under my watch!”  
  
“ _Keptin_ , why is Mr. Sulu in the brig?” Chekov asks, sneaking his eyes back to Sulu's. Sulu looks exhausted and annoyed, leaning on the bars of his cell.   
  
“It's okay, Pavel,” Kirk says. “Doctor McCoy told me what he did to you.”  
  
“Oh, please!” Sulu shouts, and Kirk glares at him.  
  
“ _Keptin_ , please,” Chekov says, his face burning. “Hikaru did nothing wrong.”   
  
“Nothing wrong! This is – this is – teen pregnancy! On my ship, and he –”  
  
“It was my fault, sir!” Chekov says desperately, and Sulu shakes his head. “I, er, what is the word for this? Seduced him?”  
  
Kirk snorts. “Yeah, right.”   
  
“Captain, with all due respect, you have lost your fucking mind,” Sulu says, sounding almost bored. “Chekov is legal in his country –”  
  
“Well he's not legal in mine, and I'm the goddamn Captain here, aren't I, Mr. Sulu?" Kirk says, pointing an accusatory finger at him.   
  
“Since when do either of you call me _Mr. Sulu_?”   
  
“Please, _Keptin_ , you must release him! I love him, I need him, you do not understand. Sir,” he adds with a gulp. He keeps getting worked up like this without even realizing it; yesterday he sobbed over a bad call in a Maladorian beatball match that Sulu was watching on the view screen in his room.  
  
“Love him?” Kirk says, so obviously disgusted by the notion that Sulu bursts into laughter. Kirk gives him a silencing look.   
  
“Yes, sir, please let him out, I can't—” Chekov was going to say _sleep without him_ , but he bites the end of his tongue before he can. Anyway it's not true; he napped most of the day away without Sulu.   
  
“How could this happen?” Kirk asks, aghast.   
  
“Do not touch his stomach,” Sulu barks when Kirk reaches for it.   
  
“Oh, is that an order?” Kirk asks Sulu sarcastically.  
  
“Jim, fuck,” Sulu moans, rubbing his hand across his face. “You've had your fun, okay, and now it'll always be on my record that I got arrested for having sex with a minor. Can you let me out of here now?”  
  
“Impregnating a minor,” Kirk corrects.   
  
“Fine,” Sulu says tightly. “Now can I take my impregnated minor back to my room and give him his prenatal supplements, please?”  
  
Kirk makes a face and shudders. “That just gave me the creeps,” he says. “For some reason.” Sulu groans.  
  
“So sorry, Captain.”   
  
“Look, Pavel,” Kirk says, grabbing Chekov's arms again. “We're going to do every thing we can to make sure that you and – the baby – come out of this just fine, alright?”  
  
“Alright,” Chekov mutters, his cheeks blazing.  
  
“Can't you see you're just humiliating him?” Sulu says. “God, just give me the code and I'll let myself out, I can almost reach the damn data pad.”   
  
“Quiet!” Kirk glowers at Sulu and turns back to Chekov. “You're the best navigator in the galaxy and I'd hate to lose you,” Kirk says.   
  
“But _Keptin_ ,” Chekov says. “If this baby does survive I will – have to look after it.”  
  
“Yeah, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Kirk presses a button on a device that's strapped to his belt and the bars on Sulu's cell disappear. Sulu steps out and shakes his head at Kirk.  
  
“You are one insubordinate bastard, Hikaru,” Kirk says.   
  
“Sorry, Captain, I'll have to work on that,” Sulu says with heavy sarcasm, taking Chekov's shoulder and pulling him from Kirk's grip.   
  
“Just let me know if you need anything, Pavel!” Kirk calls as Sulu drags Chekov away.   
  
“He totally wanted to touch your stomach,” Sulu mutters, as if this is an offense that ought to be punishable by death.   
  
Soon, Chekov discovers that Kirk is not the only one who harbors this desire. Once the news of his pregnancy spreads across the ship – rather quickly, after Kirk has been informed – a number of women begin stopping him in the halls to ask him how he's feeling, touching his stomach as they give him advice. Chekov doesn't really like it, especially when Scotty gets hold of him and not only rubs his growing belly but kneels down to talk to the baby.   
  
“Is it a girl or a boy?” Scotty asks, beaming up at Chekov.  
  
“I do not know,” Chekov says. He asked McCoy not to tell him, because he doesn't want to get too attached to the idea of an actual child growing inside him, just in case something goes wrong. But it's much too late for that, because two days ago Chekov felt the baby move inside him while he was having a shower, and it was such a breathtakingly powerful thing that he didn't even tell Sulu about it. Sometimes the baby feels like it's just _his_ , his secret, even though everyone knows about it, and he likes the feeling that he is walking around with another soul closed safely inside his. At other times, he's glad to think of the baby as almost entirely Sulu's, like a piece of Sulu's goodness that Chekov has managed to steal for himself. But most of the time he just wishes this weren’t happening to him.  
  
Halfway through the fourth month, Chekov begins to get nervous, and Sulu is even more jumpy and on edge than he is. If Chekov so much as rolls over in bed during the night Sulu will shoot up from his pillow to ask him what's wrong. Sulu is assigned to a mission off the ship and Chekov worries that he'll die of anxiety without Sulu around to keep him calm, but when Sulu asks him if he'd like him to get Kirk's permission to stay behind, Chekov says no. Sulu loves exploring alien planets, and he hasn't even been to one since Yrubi.   
  
“Try not to get anyone else pregnant while you are away,” Chekov says the night before Sulu's departure, attempting to lighten the mood.   
  
“It'll be a struggle,” Sulu says, kissing Chekov's forehead. They're in bed together, neither of them able to sleep. Sulu sighs into Chekov's hair, and Chekov clings to him, trying to memorize the feeling of Sulu's chest rising and falling under his arm, the power of his breath and the thump of his heartbeat under Chekov's ear. He'll need these memories so much while Sulu is away from him.   
  
_If anything ever happened to you_ , Chekov thinks but does not say. Maybe they are both thinking this. It's almost cozy, being so mutually frightened for each other.   
  
“Here,” Chekov says when the baby kicks at him, and he brings Sulu's hand down so that he can feel it. Most of the time this stomach that is ever-growing makes Chekov feel like a deformed mutant, but in bed like this, in the dark with Sulu, he feels as if it's actually a part of him, as if it belongs here.   
  
“Sometimes I'm glad this happened,” Sulu whispers, like it's a secret he's telling the baby, something he doesn't want Chekov to know. Chekov smiles as Sulu rubs his stomach softly, and the baby goes still again. Soon Chekov has fallen to sleep as well, breathing in the warm scent of Sulu's body beside his, never wanting to let him go. When the alarm goes off they turn toward each other groggily, and Sulu strokes Chekov's face, then the round bulge of his stomach, and then he's gone, off to shower before dressing and leaving for his mission.   
  
“Hikaru,” Chekov calls out hoarsely, half-asleep and not sure if Sulu has left the room yet or not. When he gets no answer he knows that he has.   
  
*  
  
Sulu's mission is scheduled to last approximately seven days, and the orders that he, Kirk and Spock will carry out down on Barugon are classified, so Chekov has no idea how much danger they're in, but he assumes that if Sulu has been asked along the danger must be pretty significant. Kirk usually reserves Sulu for the most harrowing missions, since he's seen Sulu in combat and is as comfortable fighting beside him as he is with Spock, which is saying something. Kirk and Sulu are always sniping at each other on board, but Chekov has seen them in action together during missions, and they are remarkably in sync when things get heated. Chekov is jealous, alone in his room and thinking of the two of them fighting together, breathlessly congratulating each other with a single look.   
  
Without Sulu on board to make him feel somewhat normal, the stares that Chekov gets as he makes his way about the ship with his now-protruding stomach begin to get to him. Every time he passes a pair of people whispering in the hall he imagines that they're talking about how him – _He's got some nerve walking around like that – if it were me I would hide in my room!_ He begins spending all of his free time alone in Sulu's quarters, and doesn't answer Uhura's messages asking him why he hasn't been to the dining hall all week. When someone comes knocking on Sulu's door on the fifth day that Sulu has been away, Chekov expects to have to tell them that Sulu isn't here, but the person who has come is looking for him, not Sulu. She's one of McCoy's nurses, the youngest.  
  
“Does the Doctor need to speak to me?” Chekov asks when she smiles in at him.  
  
“No,” she says. She glances behind her as if she's worried that someone is watching them. “I actually wanted to speak to you myself, if you're not too busy. My name is Jade, and, um.” She smiles again, nervously. “I'm pregnant, too,” she whispers.   
  
Chekov feels a little intruded upon, but he allows Jade into Sulu's room, which has begun to look as messy and disorganized as Chekov's. Sulu will be annoyed with him when he gets back, but at least Chekov is keeping Sulu's plants alive while he's gone. He leads Jade over to a little table by the view screen and clears away the notebooks full of equations that he was attempting to concentrate on before Jade came knocking at the door.   
  
“Would you like something from the replicator?” Chekov asks. He's never really entertained anyone but Sulu, who always wants a beer from the replicator when he comes to Chekov's room, mostly so that he can complain about how tasteless it is.  
  
“I'll have some potato chips and thousand island dressing, please,” Jade says. Chekov has no idea what thousand island dressing is, and when he orders it from the replicator he thinks it might have malfunctioned when a bowl of disgusting orange goop appears, but Jade smiles as if it's just what she wanted when he presents it to her, and commences dunking her potato chips into it. Chekov gets a strawberry milkshake for himself and sits down across from her.   
  
“This is all I'm eating lately,” she says.   
  
“I am mostly eating eggs and pork dumplings,” Chekov says. “Sometimes they send something from the kitchen, those real vegetables that they grow on the F deck. Is good for the baby, apparently. Do they bring you these things, too?”  
  
“No,” Jade says slowly, smiling down at her chips. “No one actually knows that I'm pregnant. Except you, now.”  
  
“Nobody? Not even the Doctor?”  
  
“No. I'll tell McCoy, but first I want to let the father know and I'm – having a little trouble working up the nerve.”  
  
“The father does not know? Is he on this ship?”   
  
Jade nods and looks up at Chekov shyly. She's pretty, with long, dark hair and thick eyelashes.   
  
“It's the Captain,” she says in a whisper, and for a moment Chekov has no idea what she means, then his eyes widen.  
  
“The _Keptin_ is the baby's father?” he asks, leaning forward over the table as if they are gossiping in a crowded cafe.   
  
“Yes!” Jade looks excited for a moment, then reels herself in. “But we're not exactly in a relationship. It was a one night thing. I don't think he's going to be happy.”  
  
“Hmm.” Chekov isn't sure what to tell her. Kirk almost definitely will not be happy about this. “Well, you can only wait so long. Will you be – showing, soon?”  
  
Jade nods. “It's been about three months,” she says. “I'm getting fatter already. It's all the potato chips. But I don't want to bore you with my personal drama – I was just wondering if you wanted to be friends, you know, so we can both have someone to talk with about what we're going through?”  
  
“Of course,” Chekov says, only to be polite, but when Jade smiles and asks him if he's been having pain in the small of his back it is a relief to talk about these things with someone other than McCoy, who frowns at Chekov gravely whether his symptoms are harmless or dire. They talk for a long time, mostly about their experiences with their pregnancies so far, though Jade also seems quite interested in Sulu.   
  
“How long have you two been in love?” she asks, and Chekov isn't sure how to answer. He feels now like he's loved Sulu since the moment they met.   
  
“Oh, for some time,” Chekov says, hoping that Sulu feels this way, too. “We have been serious with each other for only about four and a half months now, though.”  
  
“You said you were four and a half months along,” Jade says. “Was it the baby that made him commit to you?”   
  
“Eh.” Chekov scratches at his neck, embarrassed by the question. “No, it was several weeks before we learned about the baby.”   
  
“It must be so great,” Jade says, her big, dark eyes sparkling. “Having a partner to help you through everything. Sulu seems so wonderful.”  
  
“He is wonderful. But sometimes we fight.”   
  
“Really! About what?”  
  
“Eh, little things. He thinks I don't eat enough healthy things, wants me to eat only real food, not from the replicator, but I would starve.”   
  
“Oh, I'm sure he's just worried about his baby.” Jade is practically melted onto the table with envy, gazing at Chekov as if he's the luckiest person in the galaxy. “I bet you miss him.”   
  
“Yes,” Chekov says, looking down at the table. “Always, when he is away. Even before, when we were only friends.”  
  
“I love that story about you saving him, on Vulcan, you know?”  
  
Chekov laughs, because she's talking about him and Sulu as if they are folk heroes. He doesn't like to think about the fact that anyone talks about them at all.   
  
“If that happened now it would not be so good,” Chekov says. “I would not make it there in time, I run so slowly now.”   
  
Jade leaves soon afterward, her next shift in the sick bay beginning, and Chekov is left with this thought – what if someone needed him on the bridge right away? What if Sulu did? He feels crippled and used up, and he thinks of that message Sulu sent him just after Yrubi. _I feel like I ruined you._  
  
Chekov tries to concentrate on his work, but it's difficult as the five month mark approaches and McCoy wants status reports on his condition twice a day. When he feels so scattered that he can hardly focus on the simplest tasks as the ship sits motionless, he'll bring up the monitor for Sulu's vital signs and watch for changes in his heart rate. Sometimes it beats so slow and steady that Chekov is sure that he must be sleeping, and for some reason it makes him so glad to be alive, just knowing that Sulu is asleep somewhere, calm and safe.  
  
The last two days of Sulu's mission pass slowly, and Chekov becomes edgy and irritable, running out of patience for everything but the clock at the bottom of his console monitor. When he finally hears the order to beam the team on the planet back up to the ship he jumps up from his seat, and he doesn't care if everyone on the bridge thinks he's again running to the control room to do it himself. Instead, he jogs to the teleportation platform, and makes it there in time to see the team materialize, all four of them present, though they look a little beat up. Uhura is there at Chekov's side, and she hurries forward to take Spock's hand as soon as he steps down. Chekov doesn't dare touch Sulu; it's embarrassing enough to be standing there with his stomach so heavy beneath his shirt, and he's sure that everyone present knows why he's come, that he's in love with Sulu, who has ruined him. Chekov smiles tightly and resists the urge to reach up and touch a cut on Sulu's cheek.   
  
“Is everything okay?” Sulu asks breathlessly, as if Chekov is the one who was under fire from alien combatants for the past week. Chekov nods and shrugs. Everything is okay, and nothing is. He's not sure why it's only hitting him now, how cheated and doomed he feels, but maybe it's something to do with the last time he met Sulu like this when he returned from a mission. They hadn't even kissed yet, and they weren't thinking of how they must have looked as Chekov beamed and Sulu exhaled a laugh, pulling his friend into a hug that maybe lasted longer than necessary. They weren't thinking of anything but how good it felt to be together again.   
  
“No complications?” Sulu asks as he walks with Chekov toward the bridge, where Chekov must resume his shift.   
  
“No,” Chekov says, though it's a ridiculous question. This whole ordeal is a tangle of complications like nothing he ever could have anticipated. “Was the mission successful?” Chekov asks.   
  
“Yeah, I guess,” Sulu says, as if he hasn't really given it much thought. “Are you alright? You seem kinda pissed.”   
  
“I am not pissed. Only tired, Hikaru, I am tired all the time now.”  
  
“Did you tell McCoy that?” Sulu asks, and Chekov scoffs.   
  
“I tell him everything, okay? If I have a hiccup, I tell McCoy. It means nothing to him, he has never done this before.”   
  
“Okay.” Sulu raises his eyebrows and holds up his hands, which annoys Chekov intensely. “I guess I'm gonna go change. Come to my room after your shift, alright?”  
  
“Fine. Hikaru.” Chekov grabs Sulu's arm and pulls him into an alcove between the lift for the bridge and a block of conference rooms. He hugs Sulu to him as closely as he can with the bulge of his stomach in the way. Sulu sighs and wraps Chekov into his arms, leaning down to kiss his neck.  
  
“I miss you,” he says. “I mean, _missed_ you.”   
  
“I know what you mean,” Chekov says. He kisses Sulu's face with his eyes closed, wishing he didn't have to go and glad that he has the excuse. When he pulls back to look up at Sulu with a smile to dismiss him, Sulu's eyes are wet. For a long time he seems like he's going to say something devastating, but then he just shakes his head and kisses Chekov's forehead a little too hard.  
  
“Alright,” he says, turning away. “Later.”  
  
Back on the bridge, Chekov prepares the coordinates for the warp, bickering with the pilot, an older man named Dante, when he tries to interfere. Soon Kirk is back on the bridge, looking triumphant despite the yellowing bruise near his right eye.   
  
“Let's get out of here on a warp seven,” Kirk says, and he holds up a hand when Chekov and Dante both look at him like he's crazy.   
  
“Is this quadrant clear enough for that kind of speed, _Keptin_?” Chekov asks.  
  
“Our next stop is Outer Pentacle, isn't it?” Dante says.  
  
“Trust me,” Kirk says gravely as he falls into his chair. “We're gonna need to get out of here quick.”  
  
Suddenly there is activity on the planet below, an explosion so large it can be seen from space. Almost immediately, proximity alarms begin to flare, and Dante curses as he wheels the ship around.   
  
“Fuck,” Kirk groans as two enemy fighters come speeding into range from out of nowhere. “Dante, shields at eighty percent, Chekov –”  
  
“We can warp five to this abandoned quadrant, _Keptin_ , but they will follow,” Chekov says, answering Kirk's question before he can finish it.   
  
“Anderson, I need you to fire now!” Kirk shouts at one of the officers who mans the weaponry console. Spock comes running in as the ship is struck by an enemy missile, and Chekov punches up the screens that will tell him if any major damage has been done to their warping equipment. He breathes a sigh of relief when he sees that the shields have done their job.  
  
“Our intelligence informs me that ten additional Barugonian fighters are breaking the atmosphere of the planet, Captain,” Spock says.  
  
“Chekov, why are we still here?” Kirk shouts.  
  
“I'm trying to get us ready, Captain, but we still can't warp until I lose these two,” Dante says, and Chekov can hear the panic in his voice.   
  
“Where the hell is Sulu?” Kirk squawks, as if he's just now noticed that he's not here.   
  
“He's not on shift until –” Chekov begins to answer, but then Sulu is there, still wearing his torn uniform, his boots caked with dirt from the planet below as he jogs to the console.   
  
“Dante, you're relieved,” Kirk says, and Dante scrambles up from the seat with what truly does look like relief as Sulu takes over the console. Chekov breathes out with profound relief of his own as he watches Sulu grip the controls.   
  
“We're going warp eight,” Sulu says to Chekov as he overrides the weaponry console and begins firing on the closest fighter, turning the ship at the same time.  
  
“Eight?” Chekov says in disbelief.  
  
“Just find me a clear stretch of space, Pavel,” Sulu says, and Chekov lets out a choppy breath as he turns to his monitor, trying to stay calm as the ship is rocked by another blast.  
  
“Shields at full power!” Kirk shouts, back in the chair now, gripping both arms.  
  
“Doing it, sir,” Sulu says.  
  
“Spock, are we in touch with these people? Somebody find out what the hell is going on.”  
  
“What is going on is the situation we anticipated upon departure, Captain,” Spock says, managing to be a smart ass even under enemy fire. Thinking this, Chekov practically jumps out of his seat with epiphany. Vulcan – they can warp to the spot where Vulcan used to orbit. The whole area is protected by strict peace treaties.   
  
“Coordinates entered for warp speed!” Chekov says as his fingers fly over the keys at his station.  
  
“Already?” Sulu says, shooting him a smile. “Then we're warping, Captain?”  
  
“Goddamn right we are,” Kirk says. “But first –”  
  
Chekov lines up the shot and Sulu fires before Kirk can even finish his sentence, and the second fighter is destroyed.   
  
“No time for a countdown,” Sulu says as the ten additional fighters come beeping onto their proximity screens. He pulls back the lever that will shoot the ship into warp speed before the fighters can lock on, and this time, when the _Enterprise_ streaks through space to safety, Chekov doesn't feel sick at all, though his heart is slamming wildly and his hands are sweating on the console. Kirk actually whoops once they're at warp speed, all the monitors clear of enemy trackers.   
  
“By the way,” Kirk says as everyone on the bridge sits back to catch their breath. “The Federation is no longer on peaceful terms with Barugon. I expect everyone back here for an official briefing in two hours. Until then, you're all dismissed as soon as your replacements arrive.”   
  
Chekov walks back to Sulu's room after the B-squad navigator and pilot arrive to relieve them, almost forgetting his stomach and all that goes along with it as he and Sulu talk over each other, Sulu telling Chekov about what transpired on the planet and how it led to the attack, and Chekov asking eight million questions, never giving Sulu a chance to answer any of them before he's come up with three more. When they've finally shut themselves inside Sulu's room Sulu pulls Chekov into his arms and finally stops talking, moaning happily onto Chekov's shoulder as he clings.  
  
“I have so much to tell you,” Chekov says. “I met a girl who is pregnant with the _Keptin’s_ baby.”  
  
“Oh, God! She's going to be disappointed. I sort of walked in on Kirk doing – something sex-like with that guy Andy who was with us during the mission.”   
  
“Something _sex-like_ , Hikaru?”   
  
“Yeah, I don't know, there was scrambling, clothes were in disarray. Oh, Pavel, God, you're so fucking amazing, do you know what you just _did_?”  
  
“It was nothing too great, Hikaru,” Chekov says, grinning. He is pretty proud of himself, actually, and of Sulu, who truly feels like the other half of his body at this point, essential for proper functioning.   
  
“Nothing too great!” Sulu starts pulling off his clothes, and Chekov does the same, not really caring if they are going to get into the shower or fuck or just lie together under the sheets. When he takes off his shirt he remembers his burden, and looks down at it, his cheeks going pink. He usually tries to undress in the dark. Sulu walks forward and puts a hand over his stomach, smiling down at it fondly. Chekov isn't sure how he feels about this. He wants to forget for a little longer, to keep pretending that things are like they were before all of this happened.   
  
“Did he kick you during all of that excitement?” Sulu asks.   
  
“I don't think so,” Chekov says. “But I was a little preoccupied at the time. What is this 'he'?”   
  
“Just a guess,” Sulu says, leaning in to kiss Chekov's eyebrow. “So are we going back to Yrubi for your treatment or what?”  
  
“I do not think we will need to. McCoy has been monitoring things and he says there is no danger.” McCoy actually never seems quite that confident about things, but Sulu doesn't need to worry anymore than he already does.   
  
“Hmm, well. Come have a shower with me, we've only got two hours until Kirk's briefing. As if I haven't heard it all already. Maybe I could get a free pass, and maybe I could convince him that I could explain it all to you just as well as he could.” Sulu laughs. “But yeah right.” He kicks off his boxer shorts, completely naked and headed for the bathroom. “What are you doing?” he asks, looking back. “C'mere.”   
  
“I do not need a shower, you go,” Chekov says, hurrying to put his shirt back on. It's already getting too tight; he'll get a larger one from the replicator while Sulu is showering, if he'll actually get to showering and stop standing there frowning at Chekov.   
  
“What's the matter?” he asks.   
  
“Nothing,” Chekov says, putting his hands over his stomach. “I already showered this morning.”  
  
“So what? I haven't seen you in a week, Pavel, c'mere. You don't have to touch the soap, just stand there naked, yeah?”  
  
“I don't want to stand naked,” Chekov says, not sure if he's angry or just embarrassed. “You,” he gestures to Sulu, who looks even more perfect than usual with a few cuts and bruises. “You are still looking normal, and I am not.”   
  
Sulu's face breaks into confusion and then some infuriating combination of sympathy and apology. He crosses the room and puts his hands on Chekov's face, drawing a whine out of him when he kisses him, his mouth so hot and his lips soft with entreaty. He pulls back to stare into Chekov's eyes, and Chekov can't look away; it's been such a long week. He feels as if he hasn't seen Sulu in a year, as if he has been changing into a different person a little more every day and this newer version of him will have to relearn Sulu.   
  
“Please,” Sulu says, one hand still on Chekov's cheek while the other drags slowly down his back. “I'm gonna explode if I can't spend at least an hour touching you.”   
  
“Hikaru,” Chekov says, staring at Sulu's mouth, wanting so much to be touched by him, to dissolve to nothing but a bundle of nerves under his hands. He lets Sulu pull his shirt off again, and Sulu turns him around so that Chekov's back is snug against his chest, Sulu's hands roaming down over Chekov's arms, then the hard points of his nipples, and finally over the bump, which makes them both shudder.   
  
“You feel so good,” Sulu says in a whisper, kissing along the line of Chekov's shoulders. “Missed you every second. C'mon, c'mere.”   
  
They spend a long time under the hot water in the shower, more than an hour, taking time with everything, making each other beg in weak whispers instead of throat-clearing shouts. Chekov spreads his arms out against the wall of the shower and spreads his legs even wider, so that Sulu can fuck him slow from behind, his hands loose on Chekov's bucking hips. The water makes everything sting, and Chekov hisses, pushing back, wanting more, the burn of Sulu filling and stretching him so good after the long days apart. Again, he forgets everything, and it's just the two of them suspended effortlessly in space, just like it was when they were together at the console, doing what they were made to do.   
  
Chekov is exhausted afterward, his legs shaking, and he sleeps for as long as he can in Sulu's bed before Sulu rouses him for the briefing. Chekov groans and rolls onto his back, letting Sulu arrange his wet curls.   
  
“You've been living in here,” Sulu says, meaning his room. Chekov shrugs. “When the baby comes we'll have our own quarters, together,” Sulu says, so seriously that Chekov laughs.  
  
“I cannot imagine a baby,” Chekov says. “Not really.” He puts his hand over his stomach apologetically, and Sulu covers it with his.   
  
“Don't say that,” Sulu says. “Nothing – nothing bad is going to happen. To either of you.”  
  
“This is war with the Barugonians,” Chekov says. “Not safe.”   
  
“Well, nowhere is really safe. Did the Vulcan mothers think their babies were safe before the planet was destroyed?”   
  
“Such things do not happen often, Hikaru.”  
  
“Yeah, well.” Sulu rubs Chekov's stomach with his thumb, and Chekov feels the baby stir, but not hard enough for Sulu to feel it. He smiles to himself, glad for this somehow.   
  
“We know something about things that don't happen often, huh?” Sulu says, and Chekov actually thinks he's talking about being in love like this, the two of them, their incredible luck. Then he realizes he's referring to the pregnancy.   
  
*


	4. Chapter 4

When Chekov enters the fifth month of his pregnancy, McCoy and Sulu both begin to watch him as if they expect him to explode spectacularly at any moment. Chekov feels perfectly fine, only a little depressed as his stomach grows even bigger and more obvious throughout the month. When he survives to the sixth month without an emergency trip to Yrubi, Kirk takes him aside to talk seriously about the future.   
  
“I'm trying to figure out how you could stay on the ship,” Kirk says. “Because I need you here, Pavel.”  
  
“Yes, _Keptin_ ,” Chekov says glumly. He's been considering giving up the baby for adoption. He hasn't told Sulu.   
  
“We could hire a nanny,” Kirk says. “Federation ships have made bigger concessions for exceptional crew members.”   
  
Chekov can hardly pay attention to what Kirk is saying. He's thinking about his mother, wondering if she ever regretted leaving him. Probably not. Chekov probably wouldn't regret it, either. He's too young for this, and he doesn't really want it. His only hesitation is that he knows Sulu will hate him for the rest of his life if he gives their baby away. Sulu has already told his whole family about the baby, and they've been asking to talk to Chekov over video calls, wanting to get to know him. Chekov can't bear to face them and keeps coming up with excuses.   
  
“It's a good thing we didn't need to go to Yrubi after all,” Kirk says, bringing Chekov back to reality. “You know they're aligned with the Barugonians, right? Getting permission to land a Federation shuttle there might have been, well, tricky.”  
  
“Yes, is lucky then that I did not have to go. May I be dismissed, _Keptin_?”  
  
Kirk sits forward, folding his hands on the conference room table they're sitting at. He gives Chekov a sort of once-over and frowns.  
  
“Are you okay?” he asks. “You seem kind of . . . sad.”   
  
“Would you not be sad if this happened to you, _Keptin_?”  
  
Kirk sighs and sits back, nodding. “It's a lot for you to deal with,” he says. “But hey, you did everything else early, too, right? And look how well you've done.”   
  
“Yes,” Chekov says, looking down at his hands. So the Captain will hate him, too, if he gives this baby away.   
  
As he leaves the conference room and heads back to the bridge, Chekov wonders if Jade plans on telling the Captain about her pregnancy soon. She's been around to see Chekov a few times on his off days, complaining that her nausea is getting worse instead of better. She's begun to show, and her baggy clothes will only hide her secret for so long. Chekov has advised her to at least tell McCoy, who might suspect something, anyway. It's hard to get anything past the Doctor, and Chekov thinks that he's the only one who suspects that Chekov might not keep this baby.   
  
“I remember finding out my ex was pregnant,” he says during Chekov's daily check-up, which Chekov endures listlessly as usual. He can see the baby on McCoy's scanner quite clearly now, but he still can't accept that the image on the screen is really inside him. It all feels like an elaborate illusion, something designed to drive him out of his mind.   
  
“Scared the shit out of me!” McCoy says. “The whole idea of it, and I wasn't even the one who had to do all the hard work. Which she reminded me about roughly ten thousand times a day and which she still brings up on occasion. Here.” McCoy thrusts a framed photograph that usually sits atop his desk in Chekov's face. Chekov has noticed the picture before: a girl of about twelve, smiling sweetly.   
  
“That's Jo,” McCoy says. “Only thing I ever really did that was worth a damn.” He looks down at the picture himself before replacing it. “You're good to go,” he says, slapping Chekov's shoulder. “It's fucking incredible, but you are. Tricky part's going to be getting that uterus out of there after we do the C-section, but I'm reading up on it.”  
  
“Thank you, Doctor,” Chekov says as he slides from the table. He feels as if McCoy wants to say something else as he slumps from the room, and is glad when he doesn't.   
  
Things are tense onboard with the gathering forces of the war worrying everyone. Chekov can barely reach the console with his stomach in the way, and he hates catching sight of his reflection on the surface of his monitor; he looks like a bad April Fool's joke. He looks like a fool.  
  
“I want you to cut my hair short,” he tells Sulu when they're in his room together after dinner one night.   
  
“Huh?” Sulu looks up from some damn letter from one of his five hundred sisters and frowns across the room at Chekov, who is in bed under enough blankets to obscure the shape of his body.   
  
“My hair, I want you to cut it,” Chekov says. “Very short.”   
  
“What? Why?”  
  
“Why? What does it matter why, Hikaru? I have to give you a reason? I want you to do it, so will you or won't you?”  
  
“No, I won't!” Sulu says, surprising Chekov, because he usually rushes to do whatever Chekov asks. “I like your hair.”  
  
“So? Why does this matter, what you like? It is my hair! God, Hikaru! You think you can have whatever you want from me? Look at how much you've already taken!”  
  
Sulu groans and gets up. “I can't be around you when you're like this,” he says.   
  
“Then get out of here, because this is what I am like, this is how you have made me!”   
  
“It's my room!” Sulu shouts, but he leaves anyway. Chekov rolls toward the wall and huffs in frustration. He wishes he could get out of bed and punch something very hard, a thousand times, wishes he could go to the ship's gym and run a hundred miles on the treadmill. He's full of pent up energy and feels so useless, so slow. In a fit of righteous indignation he gets out of the bed and hunts through Sulu's desk drawers until he finds a pair of scissors. He walks – waddles – into the bathroom and begins cutting his curls off one at a time, convinced that he will look more like a man – whatever he's actually become – without them. Instead, he just looks like a mental patient who has hacked off his own hair. He throws the scissors into the sink with a curse and bursts into tears when he looks down at the curls that have fallen into the sink and around his feet.   
  
He goes back to bed and sobs into Sulu's pillow, feeling more like a woman than he ever has. He shouldn't have come to space, shouldn't have gone to America, to the Academy, his uncles were right. He's become a soft, sorry intellectual – he should have stayed in Moscow and lived out the rest of his life drinking himself to death with the remains of his family. He thinks of Sulu's family and how they must already hate and gossip about him because he won't have long, cheerful video chats with them about what he's going to name this baby that he doesn't want. They will see the baby as a grandson and a nephew, or maybe just as the thing that ruined Sulu's promising life. Chekov wonders if the news that the navigator for the _Enterprise_ has been blighted with a rare case of male pregnancy has reached Earth yet. He imagines his uncles laughing uproariously, unsurprised by his fate.   
  
He sleeps fitfully and wakes up with his cheeks still wet, Sulu leaning over him. He's touching Chekov's hair with sad tenderness, as if it's a dying pet.  
  
“Can't you see that I am going to ruin everything?” Chekov says quietly, and Sulu pulls him up from the bed.   
  
“Hey, calm down,” he says, kissing Chekov's hot cheek. “I'll fix it.”   
  
Sulu finds the scissors and sits on the bed across from Chekov, who sniffles and blinks as little pieces of hair fall into his lashes. He loves Sulu so much for always coming back, but he knows that this would end if he gave the baby away.  
  
“Maybe your family could raise this baby,” he says after Sulu has fixed Chekov's hair as successfully as possible. They're lying together on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the ceiling. They haven't had sex in almost a month, and every time Chekov gets out of the shower he walks back into the room to find Sulu jerking off under the blankets, his back turned on the room.   
  
“Why can't we just do it?” Sulu asks, and Chekov groans.   
  
“You do not understand, Hikaru. I don't even know what it is like to have a mother, how am I supposed to be one?”  
  
“Well, you're not supposed to be a _mother_ , but you had a father, right?”  
  
“Yes, I was responsible for putting out his cigarettes when he fell asleep holding them.”   
  
“That doesn't matter. It doesn't mean anything about how you would take care of a kid. I mean, for one thing, you don't smoke.”   
  
“Hikaru.” Chekov groans into his hands, hiding his smile behind them.   
  
“And anyway, I'll help you. So will McCoy and Uhura and all your friends. Hell, Spock can babysit, it will be hilarious.”   
  
“See, this is a joke to you!” Chekov says, hitting him. “You will not like it so much when there is really a baby here.”   
  
“I'm just trying to lighten the mood. You act like you're going to be executed in two months. Fuck, Pavel, it could be worse.”  
  
“Well, I could still die.”  
  
“Jesus!”   
  
“I could!”  
  
“Don't say it like that!”  
  
For some reason this makes them laugh harder than they have in months. Probably because no matter how seriously they try to talk about what is happening to them, none of it seems real.  
  
*  
  
A couple of weeks later, Chekov is again in the sick bay, which is beginning to feel like Chekov's second home. McCoy is doing scans when suddenly the doors of the sick bay are flung open by a man who is carrying a woman who seems to have fainted: it's Jade.   
  
“She collapsed outside of the dining hall,” the man says, carrying her forward. “She's, um, bleeding,” he adds as McCoy takes her from him, and Chekov sees the dark streaks of blood down Jade's legs.   
  
“She's pregnant!” Chekov quickly volunteers, and McCoy gives him a look.   
  
“I know,” he says darkly. “Clear out of here, Pavel, you don't want to see this.”  
  
“Is she going to be alright?”  
  
“I said clear out!”  
  
Chekov heads down the hallway toward the bridge for his shift, and once he's there he can hardly concentrate. They're flying toward a planet in what has become known as the Hostile Triangle, a group of three stars whose planets are chiefly aligned with the Klingons, such as Barugon and Yrubi. There is a prison colony there full of Federation officers that the _Enterprise_ and several other ships have been assigned to liberate; it's a tricky and important mission. Despite this, all Chekov can think about is Jade, and the dark trails of blood on her pale legs.   
  
“What's wrong?” Sulu asks. “You feeling alright?”  
  
“Yes,” Chekov says, which is a lie. His stomach is upset, but he knows it's only nerves. “It's just – my friend – she's sick.”   
  
“What friend?” Sulu turns around to look at Uhura, who is perfectly healthy and sitting on the other side of the room.  
  
“Jade,” Chekov says. “You know.”   
  
“Oh.” Sulu raises his eyebrows in understanding. “Her. Did she ever –?” He glances over his shoulder at Kirk, who is yawning obliviously.  
  
“No, he does not know,” Chekov says. He sighs and tries to concentrate on plotting the difficult path from their current position to a strategic location where they can dock while they deploy shuttles with teams who will rescue the prisoners.   
  
An hour into his shift, Chekov gets a message from McCoy asking him to come to sick bay. Something about McCoy's terse request tells him all he needs to know, and when he arrives and hears from McCoy that Jade has lost her baby, he only nods sadly.   
  
“I thought maybe you could sit with her,” McCoy says with a sigh. “She had mentioned that you two had become friends.”   
  
“Yes, okay,” Chekov says, though he has no idea what to say to the girl, and in fact feels nervous about getting anywhere near her, as if whatever caused her to miscarry might be contagious.  
  
“Pregnancy in space.” McCoy glances at Chekov. “Well. It's not such a good idea. The warp speeds, the extraterrestrial contaminants. I should warn you, you know. You're further along, but this is not uncommon.”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
McCoy clamps Chekov's shoulder and sends him into the curtained-off area where Jade is lying propped on three pillows, her hands over her now significantly smaller stomach. Chekov sits beside her and she smiles shakily.  
  
“It's okay,” she says, her voice small and weak. “It's not like I wanted a baby anyway. He wouldn't have even, I couldn't even bring myself to –” She breaks off there, her voice dropping away, and Chekov takes her hand in his.   
  
“I am so sorry this happened to you,” he says, imagining himself in this bed, the baby gone, all of the difficult questions now moot. He imagines Sulu sitting beside him, crying and asking him what happened.  
  
“I just feel like such a failure,” Jade says with a sob, wiping at her eyes. “Is that weird?”  
  
“No, not weird.” Chekov knows he would feel the same way if this happened to him. When Jade drops off to sleep he leaves the sick bay, and finds Kirk talking quietly with McCoy out in the hall.   
  
“Well, I guess I should go in and see her,” Kirk says. His shoulders are squared deliberately and he looks a little wrecked. “I always like to – be there for my crew. When they're, um. Unwell.”   
  
Chekov nods and walks away, down the hall to Sulu's quarters. Someone else has been put on the console for the remaining hour of his shift, and he spends the hour before Sulu is relieved lying in the bed and staring up at the ceiling, at nothing, his hands over his stomach. When Sulu comes in he smiles sadly at Chekov; the news must have spread already. Chekov watches Sulu change from his uniform into a t-shirt and sweatpants, watches him tend to his plants and straighten the books that Chekov has left spilled all over his desk. He loves Sulu so much that his every little gesture is a comfort; he even loves the way his socks look against the carpet as he pads around the room.   
  
“You okay?” Sulu asks, coming to sit beside Chekov on the bed. He puts his palm over the highest point of Chekov's bulging stomach, where his hands always seems to gravitate. Sulu is the only one whom Chekov wants touching him there.   
  
“What would you do if I lost this baby?” Chekov asks, the question stale on his tongue, because he's been holding it in, waiting to ask it since he left Jade in the sick bay.  
  
“I would be upset,” Sulu says. “But you're not going to lose him.”   
  
“Would you hate me if I did?”  
  
“Of course not. Pavel, here, let me make you some tea –”  
  
“What if I gave it away?” Chekov asks, barely getting the question out. “Would you hate me then?”  
  
Sulu frowns a little and shakes his head. He strokes his hand over Chekov's stomach as if this is part of his answer.  
  
“You wouldn't do that,” Sulu says.   
  
“How do you know?”  
  
“I don't know how. I just know.”   
  
Sulu doesn't get up to make tea, because he knows what Chekov really needs. He lies down beside him and rolls Chekov into his arms, holding him from behind so they can press completely together. Chekov shuts his eyes as Sulu pushes his hand up under his shirt and strokes his back.   
  
“I should tell you – I don't know if anyone's told you – that everybody really admires you. I mean, the way you're still doing your job, not just hiding in here as if you're ashamed –”  
  
“I _am_ ashamed, Hikaru. But I would go insane if I never left this room.”  
  
Sulu is quiet for awhile, his hand motionless on Chekov's back. Chekov is still thinking of Jade, trying to envision Kirk comforting her, maybe holding her hand.   
  
“Do you think you'll always feel this way?” Sulu asks. “I mean, even after you have the baby? Ashamed of me?”   
  
“Of _you_? What are you talking about?”  
  
“Well, it's my baby – I did this to you. Don't you know everyone on this ship hates me for it? You, you're like a saint, all anyone talks about is how brave you are. No one will even meet my eye, and I don't blame them.”  
  
“You're crazy, Hikaru,” Chekov says, reaching back to touch his cheek. “You're imagining things.”  
  
“I remember, that night on Yrubi, you were so – you kept leaning on me, and the way you were smiling, like you'd never been so happy, God, I would have died for the courage to kiss you, so I just kept drinking that stuff.”  
  
“I drank it, too,” Chekov says, not even sure where Sulu is going with this.   
  
“And I think I remember, now, kind of, what it was like, the way it felt when you didn't push me away, the way you tasted. Pavel, I. It was worth it for me, I just wish it was for you, too. I wish I could go through all of this for you, I wish you could just sit back and look worried.”   
  
“I wish that, too,” Chekov says, patting Sulu's cheek, and he laughs. “But I'm still glad, Hikaru. I'll always be glad that you kissed me.”   
  
He rolls over and Sulu kisses him softly, his hands on Chekov's face, then harder, moving down to kiss Chekov's neck the way he always does – did – when he wants to have sex. Chekov moans in semi-protest, trying not to give over to the feeling of Sulu's lips on his skin, his hands skimming down Chekov's body as if it's still sacred and perfect and worth touching.   
  
“Hikaru, wait,” Chekov says when Sulu reaches down to cup his stiffening cock.   
  
“Wait for what? God, Pavel, I want you so much, I keep dreaming about it –”  
  
“It won't be any good, I'm too awkward now, it's too strange.”  
  
“It will be good, it will, just let me show you, I just want to make you feel good.”   
  
Chekov whines a little, but he's missed this and it's hard to fight it. He lets Sulu undress him, telling the room's computer to put the lights off as he does. Sulu complains about this, but he lets Chekov have his way, leaving them off. He prods Chekov up onto his hands and knees, and Chekov grips the headboard, spreading himself open and taking a deep breath, preparing to be penetrated for the first time in over a month. But instead of a slick finger, Sulu brings his mouth down to Chekov's entrance, licking across it hot and hard, and Chekov groans with surprise, shuddering.   
  
“You like that?” Sulu asks, smug, like he already knows the answer.  
  
“ _Da_ ,” Chekov breathes, pressing his forehead against the headboard when Sulu licks him again. Chekov groans so hard that the bed frame vibrates. Sulu has never done this to him before, but Chekov has thought about it, and wanted it, and it feels so appropriately dirty now, so good. Sulu teases him with soft licks and then fucks him with him tongue, making Chekov groan and cry for more, the novelty of this new trick soon wearing off, because he needs Sulu's cock so badly.  
  
“Please, Hikaru,” he says, groping behind him blindly, grabbing at Sulu's shoulder.   
  
“You want to be fucked?” Sulu asks, stroking the cleft of Chekov's ass just slightly with his thumb; he likes it when Chekov shivers.   
  
“Yes, _da_ , so much, please!”   
  
“You open wide enough for me? It's been so fucking long, Pavel, you're going to be so tight, God.”  
  
“Yes, please, am ready, Hikaru, ready now, please, please –”  
  
“Shh, okay.” Sulu rubs the small of Chekov's back, and Chekov can hear the squish of the lubricant as he slicks himself with it. Chekov's mouth falls open when he finally feels the thick tip of Sulu's cock against his entrance, and he moans as Sulu slides inside, powerfully at first and then weaker and weaker as his body pulses wildly, trying to accommodate the intrusion. It really has been a long time.   
  
“Fuck,” Sulu gasps out when he's fully inside Chekov, his balls resting against the curve of Chekov's ass. He leans down to kiss the back of Chekov's neck, his hands still on his hips. “You okay?” he whispers. “You're so – so tight, Pavel –”  
  
“Am okay,” Chekov says, reaching back to hold Sulu's hip with one shaking hand. Sulu understands what this means and stays perfectly still inside Chekov, kissing his shoulders and nuzzling his neck.   
  
“You feel so good,” he whispers. “So good, Pavel, love you so much, you're paradise, you're everything.”  
  
Chekov laughs against the headboard, squeezing Sulu's hip. He sounds drunk.   
  
“I mean it,” Sulu says, and the wounded sincerity in his voice makes Chekov laugh harder, which feels so good, just the shake of his laughter moving Sulu's cock slightly inside him.   
  
“I know you do, Hikaru,” Chekov says. “Now fuck me like you mean it, okay?”  
  
Sulu does, maybe still a little pissed off that Chekov was laughing at him, because he gives it to Chekov hard, his hands two vises around Chekov's hips as Chekov strains backward to meet every thrust. Chekov is moaning things in Russian that he never thought he'd have cause to say, asking Sulu if he likes fucking that tight ass, and Sulu answers in angry grunts as if to say yes, he does, very much. When he grabs Chekov's cock Chekov knows it's because he's about to come and wants to hold back, keep going. He pushes himself through the tight ring of Sulu's fingers and comes when he tries to imagine what Sulu looked like back there, licking between his ass cheeks, eyes closed and dick hard as he enjoyed Chekov's trembling and helpless moans. As soon as Chekov loses it Sulu starts pumping into him hard again, holding only one hip now, his other hand on Chekov's shoulder, pulling him away from the headboard. Chekov feels so completely contained in Sulu's steady hands, and he cries out along with Sulu when he comes, driving in hard as the last of his control shatters.  
  
Chekov is asleep almost immediately afterward, Sulu spilled around him, and the whole room seems to buzz with pleasure of its own around him, the darkness so thick and comforting. He wakes intermittently to the slightly unpleasant feeling of come leaking out of him, and when he does Sulu is still curled so tightly against him that Chekov thinks he must be having a nightmare, but then he realizes that Sulu is crying, his shoulders shaking with short little sobs.  
  
“Hikaru?” Chekov mumbles, rolling onto his back, which takes some effort. He makes a sympathetic cooing noise that must be instinctive, because he's pretty sure no one has ever made one at him. Sulu shuts his eyes and shakes his head when Chekov takes his face in his hands and kisses his wet cheeks.   
  
“If anything happens to you I'll –” Sulu breaks off there, dissolving into silent sobs against Chekov's chest as Chekov pulls him in close, shushing him.   
  
“Nothing will happen,” Chekov promises as he strokes Sulu's hair, but for the first time he is truly worried that something might, and that it could be horrible. He could disappear. If Sulu believes in the possibility enough to be this frightened, it could really happen. Chekov holds Sulu tightly, hoping he can't feel the shudder that moves through him. Whatever happens, in two months, it will all be over. Somehow that is the strangest thing of all.  
  
*  
  
They dock in a hidden quadrant within the Hostile Triangle and await their next orders for a full month. Everyone is bored, tense and irritable, and Chekov's anxiety takes the form of bad stomach aches on a daily basis. He doesn't mention them to Sulu or McCoy, because he knows he's only worked up about the situation he's somehow found himself in and that telling them will only cause them to fly into a worried frenzy that will drive Chekov out of his mind. On the morning when they finally get a communication from headquarters about moving in to try to rescue the prisoners down on the colony, Chekov's stomach aches go from dull and nagging to vomit-inducing, because of course Sulu will go with Kirk on this mission, piloting one of the shuttles.  
  
“Are you going to say goodbye to me or what?” Sulu asks, pushing into the bathroom. Before Chekov can scramble up from the floor, Sulu catches him kneeling on the floor by the toilet, wiping his mouth.   
  
“What – you're sick?” Sulu says as he helps Chekov up.  
  
“Just because you're leaving,” Chekov says. He washes his face and brushes his teeth, feeling so weak and disoriented that just holding the toothbrush exhausts him. He watches Sulu's face in the mirror, and hates that he'll be sent off on his mission thinking of this when he needs to be concentrating on saving those prisoners, and on surviving.  
  
“I'm fine,” Chekov says, smiling shakily. “Just afraid you're going to die. What else is new? I will probably throw up every time Kirk sends you to your death for the rest of our lives. But you will always come back. Right? Always?”  
  
“You'd better go see McCoy,” Sulu says, kissing the side of Chekov's head. Chekov wishes he had realized that Chekov was serious, that he needs a promise about how Sulu will always beat the impossible odds and show up on the teleportation platform whenever Chekov is there waiting for him.   
  
“I'll see him, I see him every day!” Chekov turns and hugs Sulu, his arms shaking now, too. Between this mission and the C-section that McCoy has scheduled for the following month, there's too much that could go wrong.   
  
“Just take care of yourself while I'm gone,” Sulu says. He kisses Chekov's neck, bending at the waist to reach it over the shape of Chekov's stomach.   
  
“Do not worry about me,” Chekov says. “You take care of yourself. And the _Keptin_ , he will probably need you to save his life at least once.”   
  
“Probably,” Sulu says, leaning back to smile and kiss Chekov on the lips. “I'll be back soon,” he promises, and Chekov knows that's not true, that Sulu won't be back soon enough. The mission is complicated, and he and Kirk won't even be able to communicate with the _Enterprise_ because of the risk of an intercepted transmission. He smiles anyway, as if he believes this, and presses his face against Sulu's neck one last time, shutting his eyes and trying to sink completely into the sound of his heart beating.   
  
“I'll watch your heart rate monitor,” he says, making himself pull back. Sulu is already late, and Kirk will be anxious to leave.   
  
“I'll think about you watching it,” Sulu says, grinning. “I'll send you messages.” He puts his hand on his chest and taps it over his heart. “Morse code.”   
  
“Ha ha. Alright, go.”  
  
Somehow, Chekov is surprised when he actually does, and he has to chew his tongue to keep from crying out, _Wait, come back, what are you doing?_   
  
*  
  
Things go downhill rapidly. Chekov makes it to only two shifts after Sulu is gone before he collapses in the middle of the bridge on the way to the bathroom. He wakes up in the sick bay and overhears McCoy on a call to a physician on Yrubi who he's been consulting with for months now.   
  
“But why would this be happening now?” McCoy asks. “I've never read about this happening in any of the case studies.”  
  
“Regardless, Dr. McCoy, you cannot deny that it is happening now, to this patient. The uterus is shrinking and it is likely because his body has absorbed the last of the herbal mixture that allowed him to grow it in the first place. If you could simply get him to Yrubi –”  
  
“Simply! You don't seem to understand.” McCoy is practically growling, and Chekov would laugh if he didn't feel too delirious to manage it. “We're at war with your planet right now. We can't exactly send a shuttle down.”  
  
“I understand, Dr. McCoy, and I would not advise trying it. We have placed many mines in orbit around the planet that would attach to a Federation vessel if it came anywhere near our atmosphere. I'm trying to come up with another way to deliver these herbs to you –”  
  
“Could we get them from a replicator?” McCoy asks.  
  
“Oh no, that would be impossible, it is a very delicate combination of ingredients and only the actual components will do – believe me, Yrubians have tried to replicate their drugs and we would be quite a lot richer if manufacturing them were so easy!”  
  
“Dammit, man, then what the hell am I supposed to do? If the organ disappears the kid is going to end up with, I don't know, a crushed fetus inside him? I can't even imagine how it would go, but it's going to add up to him dying.”   
  
“I would be willing to help him if you could get to Yrubi somehow,” the Yrubian doctor says. “But I cannot risk my own life by boarding a Federation vessel, you understand –”  
  
Chekov goes under again, and he dreams of Sulu's heart rate monitor. In his dream it's a delicate instrument that accounts for the proper operation of Sulu's heart, and Chekov wakes from his sick bay bed to learn that he's killed Sulu by abandoning his heart-monitoring duties. Then the dreams slip away, and there's nothing, no hearts beating and no baby kicking, just darkness and an occasional sharp pain. Sometimes he gets the sense that hands are on him, that needles are being administered. He tries to wake up and can't. Something is holding him under. He imagines himself crouched in a dark space, deep inside his body, and he reaches around, trying to find his baby. In some of his dreams he does, and he holds him close, promising that Sulu will come and save them soon, knowing that this is a lie. His father used to lie to him, too. He told Chekov his mother would be coming home anytime, that she simply had business in another country. He knew all the time that his father was lying, even when he was four years old. Still, he lies to his baby in his dreams, or in his mind, or wherever the two of them are suspended, telling him things will be okay.   
  
*  
  
When he does wake up, it's to crushing pain and blurry faces, and he's quickly under again, before he can even ask any of the people who hover over him if Sulu has returned or not, if the mission was successful. He has no idea how much time has passed. He recognizes voices – Jade, McCoy, Uhura, even Scotty. People talk about him gravely, as if they are visiting an open coffin at Chekov's funeral. Perhaps they are; he has a very loose grasp on what is actually happening.  
  
One day, finally, he hears a voice that cuts through all the fog. It's Sulu's, and Chekov isn't sure if he's hallucinating or dreaming or hearing something real, but it hardly matters. Sulu is speaking to McCoy, telling him he doesn't care, that he's going. Chekov struggles to open his eyes, and to his amazement it actually works. He sees Sulu still dressed in combat gear, gesturing as if he's close to actually punching the doctor in the face.  
  
“You'll both die if you try it,” McCoy says. “It's suicide.”  
  
“I've driven things much bigger than a goddamn shuttle through minefields,” Sulu says. Chekov has never heard him so dangerous and savage, and he would cheer him on if he could, though he's not even really sure what he and McCoy are arguing about.  
  
“I –” McCoy starts to say, but then he glances over at Chekov and his eyes go wide. Sulu sees that Chekov is awake and hurries to his side, kneeling down to hold Chekov's hand between his.  
  
“Pavel,” he says, his voice shaking. “Pavel –” He stops there, as if he doesn't know any other words.   
  
“Hikaru,” Chekov says, barely, or maybe not at all, but he tries. It's a difficult name to say; he's noticed this before, when he's trying to push it past his lips as he's panting through an orgasm.   
  
“I'm taking him,” Sulu says, turning back to McCoy. “I don't care what anybody says.”  
  
“Well, I know Jim will let you do whatever you want after what you just pulled off with that prisoner shuttle, but goddammit, this is different, Yrubi is highly –”  
  
The black curtain that always hunts Chekov now closes over him again, and he doesn't get to hear the rest. The next time he manages to wrench his eyes open he's strapped into a bio bed in a small room – or, no, it isn't a room, it's a shuttle, and Sulu is piloting it.   
  
“Hikaru,” Chekov calls weakly, because he needs to be sick.   
  
“Almost there,” Sulu shouts back. “Almost – fuck!” The shuttle swerves sharply, and Chekov turns himself onto his side to throw up on the floor, then he's out again, glad for it this time.   
  
The next time he wakes, he's in Sulu's arms, and Sulu is panting so hard that Chekov feels extremely guilty for having become so heavy. Sulu is running, which can't be easy, and Chekov can't bear to see him like this, so desperate and frantic, so he shuts his eyes again.   
  
He dreams that he's searching for his son – he's screaming through the streets of an alien city, alone and crazed with terror, pushing people out of the way. He's calling a name, but Chekov can't hear it, as if the dream has been put on mute, only a dull whine buzzing between his ears.   
  
He wakes up when he's being force-fed something sour and spits it everywhere. Sulu is there, shouting, and Chekov wonders if they've been taken prisoner. He bites someone's hand.   
  
In the next dream, his son is still missing, and now he's in a shallow lake, pushing his hands through tangled webs of seaweed as he searches for him, sobbing as he calls out a name he still can't hear clearly, though it might end with an 'o,' sound, if that's not just the sound of Chekov's weeping.   
  
Someone puts something over his face. He's sure that he's being killed, and that Sulu is already dead. A hot tear rolls down the side of his face, and it's the first thing that's felt real in a long time.  
  
Time is relative in the state he's barely lingering in, but even in his deep surrender he understands that he's been asleep for a very long while by the time the volume returns to his dreams and he hears himself screaming, as he crashes through a crowded battlefield, pushing aliens and Federation soldiers aside with no fear for his own life: “Nico! Where are you? Nico! Where have they taken you?”  
  
*  
  
He wakes up feeling as if his body has been completely reprogrammed. The weight at his stomach is gone. His limbs are shaky and frail, and his head feels as if it's floating. He expects to find himself trapped in some hellish Yrubian prison, and as he slowly recognizes the sick bay on the _Enterprise_ , and Sulu sitting across from him, slumped onto the bed with his head on his folded arms, asleep, it's of no comfort.  
  
“Hikaru!” Chekov shouts, and Sulu jumps up as if he's been shot. Chekov puts his hands on his deflated, missing stomach and begins to hyperventilate, staring at Sulu with accusation. “Where is he?” he screams, like an echo from the nightmares he's lived in since he lost consciousness.   
  
“Pavel,” Sulu says in a hushed breath, his eyes bloodshot.   
  
“Where is he, what have they done with him? Did they keep him, did they take him? Oh, Hikaru, did you let them keep him?” He's sobbing, hysterical, and then suddenly several people are running into the room. One is McCoy, and another is Jade, who is holding a baby wrapped in a green blanket. Chekov thinks deliriously that she must not have lost her baby after all, it must have been some kind of mistake, and then he realizes that it's not her baby she's holding, it's his.   
  
“Nico!” he exclaims as Jade comes to his side with the baby, smiling and handing him over. Chekov has reached for him and not found him in so many dreams, but he feels so familiar in Chekov's arms already, warm and solid and staring up at him with Sulu's dark eyes. Remembering Sulu, who is still sitting on the end of the bed and looking dumbstruck, Chekov beams at him. Sulu chokes up some combination of a laugh and a sob that sounds painful.   
  
“What happened?” McCoy is barking. “When did he regain consciousness?”  
  
“Just now,” Sulu says. His voice sounds like that of a ghost, and it breaks Chekov's heart, but he doesn't have time to be heartbroken. He bends down and presses a thousand kisses to Nico's chubby pink face, until Nico starts to complain about the attention with irritable little cries.   
  
“Pavel,” Sulu chokes out while McCoy drags a scanner over to the bio bed. “You – you've been in a coma for a month, I thought –”   
  
“Come here, Hikaru,” Chekov says, dismissing this. He feels like he's been asleep for at least two years, but it doesn't matter. He's awake now. Sulu scoots over to sit beside Chekov, tears leaking down his face as if he's been holding them back for some time. He touches Chekov's hair, which is still short but already growing longer, and then reaches down to stroke Nico's thin black hair as well.  
  
“It's a fucking miracle,” McCoy mutters, peering at Chekov from behind the scanner.   
  
“He's so beautiful, Pavel,” Jade says, beaming at him from McCoy's side. “And so sweet.”   
  
Chekov smiles, though he doesn't need anyone to tell him this. His baby is so familiar to him already, as if they were always together during the time that Chekov was unconscious. Nico has Chekov's nose, fat on the end, and Chekov somehow knew that he would.   
  
“Have you held him yet?” Chekov asks Sulu, just out of curiosity; he's not ready to let Nico go. Sulu grins.  
  
“Ha! Held him? Yeah, for three hours when I was trying to get us back to the ship,” Sulu says, his tears still coming though his voice is relatively steady. “I had to do it one-handed so I could steer. Nearly went out of my mind trying to avoid those satellite mines and the eight thousand fuh – freaking missiles the fighters that followed me off the planet were blasting at me, but I hope he'll appreciate the tutorial when he becomes a brilliant pilot someday.” Sulu leans down to kiss Nico wetly on the forehead, then he kisses Chekov's temple, moaning a little, as if doing so feels so good that it hurts.  
  
“Thought you were dead,” he says softly.   
  
“Me too,” Chekov says. He kisses Sulu quick on the mouth. “You're the only reason I'm not.”  
  
“Ahem,” McCoy says, and Chekov smiles at him, because he probably does deserve some credit, too.   
  
“Hey!” someone shouts through the sick bay, and Chekov looks up to beam at Kirk as he crosses the room, his arms spread out, a bottle of champagne clutched in one of them.  
  
“There he is!” Kirk says, toasting Nico with the bottle as he comes near. Chekov thinks he might be a little drunk. “Man, look at him! Looks just like Sulu, that's a damn shame.” He smacks Sulu on the shoulder and Sulu gives him a weary grin, wiping at his face.  
  
“This son of a bitch saved my ass, then a hundred prisoners, then came back here and got you two through a million mines and back again,” Kirk says, squeezing Sulu's shoulder. “And he's been in this sick bay since you guys got back, what was that, five days ago? Bet you're kind of tired, huh?”   
  
“I don't remember what real sleep is like anyway,” Sulu says, still looking at Chekov and Nico. “I don't miss it.”  
  
“Well, even so, I'm giving you both six weeks of maternity leave. Until we're under fire and I need one of you on the bridge, anyway. So, you know, leave your communicators on.”  
  
“Thank you, _Keptin_ ,” Chekov says, and to his surprise, Kirk's eyes are shining with unshed tears.  
  
“Hey,” he says, ruffling Chekov's short, sweaty hair. “Was worried about you. Glad you're back.”   
  
Everyone clears off after that, McCoy manning the sick bay door and keeping onlookers and congratulatory friends away. Sulu climbs fully into the bio bed with Chekov and Nico, and they both stare at their baby, the fact that he's real sinking in faster than Chekov expected it to. It would be hard to deny with Nico staring right back at them, taking them in.   
  
“Was it very bad?” Chekov asks. “Everything that happened while I was not conscious?”  
  
“It wasn't so bad,” Sulu says, touching Nico's tiny fingers with his own. “At least, it doesn't seem so bad now.”  
  
“Hikaru,” Chekov says, and Sulu looks up at him, his eyes dry now, and his smile real. “Thank you.”  
  
“Don't thank me,” Sulu says with a scoff, kissing Chekov's temple. “You did the hard part. But. You're welcome. You – you called him Nico, before. Is that his name?”  
  
“Yes,” Chekov says, looking back to Nico, who is sleeping soundly now. “I dreamed it.”   
  
“You dreamed it? What does it mean?”  
  
“I don't know,” Chekov says, laughing. “It's just his name.”   
  
“Hmm, okay. Nico Sulu. I guess it works.”  
  
“Nico Chekov.”  
  
“That doesn't sound as good.”  
  
“Sounds okay to me. And anyway you'll have to marry me if you want him to have your name.”   
  
“That's so old-fashioned. But okay.”  
  
Chekov laughs and presses his face to Nico's soft forehead; he feels as if he'll never grow tired of doing so. Sulu wraps them both into his arms and leans against the pillow, sighing against Chekov's cheek. Chekov did not expect to feel this way, as if the baby is part of an equation that had always been incomplete. Why should he have needed another person, when he already had Sulu? Now he can't imagine either of them existing without Nico, as if he balances them perfectly. Chekov wants to dissolve into nothing between them like entering nirvana, and he can't stop switching between their identically wrinkled brows, kissing both in turn.   
  
“He looks so much like you,” Chekov says to Sulu, who grins in agreement.   
  
“I can't believe I did this,” Sulu says, stroking the back of his finger down Nico's sleeping face. “Part of this, anyway.”  
  
“You're proud of yourself,” Chekov says, tipping his head against Sulu's. “Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah,” Sulu says. “Something like that.”   
  
Chekov doesn't sleep; he's had more than enough of that. But Sulu sleeps, and Nico sleeps, in little fits and starts, blinking up at Chekov every so often as if he wants to make sure he's still there. Sulu is a dead weight on Chekov's shoulder, snoring before too long. Chekov wants to laugh, or something, because he never expected any of this, but it all seems so obvious all of a sudden, a conclusion he was always moving toward.  
  
“Still here,” he whispers when Nico blinks up at him, and Nico shuts his eyes again. Chekov isn't sure he can promise the people he loves any more than this, because they're living during a war and there's nowhere to go where they can live without the fear of their planet crumbling beneath them. But it's more than he ever got as a child, and he's glad to say it, again and again, every time Nico opens his eyes: _I'm still here, still here._  
  
*  
  
Five years later, the war with the Klingons is mostly over, peace treaties entered into the records and tentative cultural understandings attempted. There are other enemies of the Federation, however; these will never be in short supply, and Sulu is still deployed on away missions at least once every few months or so. Chekov hates it, but he knows that Sulu wouldn't be happy without risking his life for the Federation all the goddamn time, so he kisses him goodbye with a smile every time he goes.   
  
He's waiting at the teleportation bay with Nico after a particularly long mission, the same sharp terror that his son's father will not return with the others plaguing him as always. Nico is standing at Chekov's side, too grown up now to let Chekov hold him, but he does hold Chekov's hand when he gets impatient, staring up at him.   
  
“Where's Dad?” he asks, looking from Chekov to the bay.   
  
“He's coming,” Chekov says. “Be still.”   
  
Nico clings to Chekov's leg absentmindedly, not self-consciously trying to imitate the adults as he sometimes does in the halls of the _Enterprise_. He's the only child on board, and while Chekov tries to introduce him to others when they're on shore leave, Nico usually recoils from them, unable to relate to their tantrums and smallness. Chekov can only pray that when Nico is a teenager he'll recognize enough adultness in his peers to identify with them; he knows that he's provided his son with a strange childhood, but he must believe that this is better than any childhood without his parents.   
  
“Papa?” Nico says, tugging on Chekov's uniform pants again. “Where?”   
  
“Be patient,” Chekov says sharply, beginning to get tense about the lateness of Sulu's arrival himself. He should have left Nico with Jade until Sulu returned; he tells himself this every time, but he knows how happy Sulu always is to see Nico as soon as he's back, and he can never stop himself from picking him up from his babysitter's care early on the days when Sulu is scheduled to return.   
  
When the three officers who were on the mission that lasted a week longer than originally anticipated finally arrive on the bay, Chekov lets out his breath as quietly as possible, not wanting Nico to see how anxious he'd become. Sulu is the first off the platform, grinning and reaching for Nico, who laughs and bounds into Sulu's arms.   
  
“Brought you some Arailian candy,” Sulu says, kissing Nico's cheek as he holds him in his arms. “Some for you, too,” he says, winking at Chekov, who smiles and rolls his eyes.  
  
“Will it be bad like the candy from the last planet?” Nico asks.   
  
“I hope not,” Sulu says, walking forward to kiss Chekov as well, tightly on his forehead. “Was he well-behaved while I was gone?” Sulu asks as the three of them walk back to their quarters.   
  
“Yes!” Nico answers happily for Chekov, who snorts.  
  
“Mostly,” Chekov says. “He was using your PADD without permission, sending messages to your poor mother at three o'clock in the morning her time.”  
  
“I'm sure she didn't mind,” Sulu says, and Chekov gives him a look, though of course she didn't. It's easier for Sulu to spoil Nico, because he's always away. Most of the time Nico drives Chekov up the wall, and he has no problem admonishing him when Sulu would rather indulge him.   
  
Sulu is yawning by the time they get back to their quarters, and Chekov gets some grilled cheese sandwiches from the replicator – they're Sulu’s and Nico's favorite. He sits at his desk trying to finish studying the problem with the south deck's backup warp drive that Scotty asked him to look at while Sulu and Nico settle into the bed to eat while they watch some inane program from Rictus-9 that Nico loves.   
  
“Papa!” Nico calls as Chekov chews his sandwich, staring down at Scotty's horrible handwriting. “Come here and watch with us!”  
  
“Yeah, Pavel, c'mon,” Sulu says. “Quit working so hard.”  
  
Chekov could ask Sulu to stop doing the same, to turn down missions and spend less time at the helm, but when he turns to look at Sulu and Nico, they're both smiling at him with the same sweet expression that has prevented Chekov from taking both of them to task a million times before. He grins and walks to the bed, collapsing against Sulu's side, Nico snuggled between them and beaming at them both in turn as he eats his sandwich.   
  
“Papa,” he says, leaning his head onto Chekov's chest. “Tell the story of when you saved Dad and Captain Kirk.”  
  
Chekov grins and obliges, still wickedly glad that this is Nico's favorite story, and not the story of how Sulu saved both of them from a minefield and certain death. He tries not to be insulted when Nico falls asleep halfway through the story.   
  
“He's had a long day,” Chekov says, lifting Nico into his arms. “Jade is teaching him to swim.”  
  
“Is she, like, certified to do that?” Sulu asks, and Chekov rolls his eyes. Sulu thinks Jade is scatterbrained and irresponsible, but she's been taking care of Nico for five years while Sulu and Chekov have shifts together, and Chekov trusts her completely.  
  
Chekov puts Nico to bed, kissing his forehead and straightening his dark hair before he slips out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. He walks back into the bedroom that he and Sulu have shared on the _Enterprise_ since Nico was born, and smiles when he sees that Sulu has already stripped his uniform off.   
  
“Missed you,” Sulu says as Chekov walks to the bed, pulling his shirt over his head as he does.  
  
“When is your next mission off-ship?” Chekov asks as he undresses further, Sulu watching with his lips slightly parted. Since carrying Nico, Chekov has overcompensated a bit by working out harder and more often than he used to, making himself firm and hard, the flatness of his stomach still a daily comfort. The only remaining evidence of his pregnancy is a long scar across his stomach from the emergency C-section he had on Yrubi. Sulu tells him it makes him look tough.  
  
“Don't think about that already,” Sulu says, which means that it's soon. Chekov sighs and pulls off his underwear along with his trousers, throwing everything to the floor. There will never be enough time together, not until he and Sulu retire, and by then they'll be seventy or eighty years old. Nico will be married with children of his own and won't call enough. Sulu will get under Chekov's feet and nag him about eating too much processed replicator food, just like always. Chekov smiles and sinks down to rest his head against Sulu's chest, thinking of it. He already believes in miracles, has ever since he first held Nico, and it's the only thing that makes him sure that he and Sulu will both live to see old age, because the reality of their lives should certainly make him feel otherwise. He sighs and listens to Sulu's heart beat as Sulu strokes his hair.  
  
“Remember when you cut all your hair off?” Sulu says.  
  
“Yes, Hikaru.”  
  
“That broke my fucking heart. More than anything else that happened that year, really. It's funny, I still think about it, and my eyes well up when I remember walking into that bathroom and seeing your curls all over the floor.”  
  
“I'm so sorry I've traumatized you, Hikaru.”  
  
“Yeah, you better be.” Sulu rolls Chekov onto his side and holds him close, kissing him with feverish need, as if they're already counting down the seconds until he has to leave the ship again, and of course they both are.   
  
“Hikaru,” Chekov says, pushing the name into Sulu's mouth. “Why can't you always be here? Right here?”  
  
“I am,” Sulu says, and he licks over Chekov's lips so softly. “I'm always here.”   
  
Chekov knows what he means, but he wishes it were literally true. There is a Russian proverb that says that loving someone is like having your heart walking around outside your body and always being frantic with panic for what might happen to it, everything out of your control. Chekov cleaved his heart in half long ago, and Nico and Sulu carry the halves around with oblivious smiles, asking him how his hair can possibly be going gray when he is only twenty-two years old. He wants to gather them up against him and duck down low, somewhere out of danger, but there is no such place in the universe, so he watches them run around and ahead of him, and he tries to be glad that there are so many things in this world that don't last forever, because it makes them so much more precious while they exist. He's always glad for the one thing that does last forever, the light that burns at the center of him, flooding through him when Sulu rolls on top of him in bed and crushes him down with kisses, and when Nico laughs hysterically at the cartoons Chekov draws for him when it's just the two of them in the bed, waiting for Sulu to come back to them. The only thing that lasts forever is the one thing that makes all the others feel so fragile and fleeting, and it's a beautiful equation, the sort that made Chekov fall in love with mathematics as a boy. It all balances out so perfectly, and he's still in awe, wondering all the time how he's lucky enough to live in a world where such artful, delicate things exist.


End file.
